Chapter 1: Carving a Path Through Catering
Before he was The Blade, Jesse Guilmette was a man named Pepper Parks. Yes, Pepper Parks—because what screams “future main-eventer” more than being named after a 1960s malt shop crooner or a boutique spice rack? But long before he skinned opponents in AEW or stood scowling behind The Butcher like a noir-era hitman, Guilmette was just another wiry Midwestern kid with a dream and a death wish disguised as ambition.
Trained by Les Thatcher—arguably the last man alive who thinks a wristlock is a personality—Guilmette began slicing his teeth in Heartland Wrestling Association. There, he formed The A Squad with Chet Jablonski, which sounds like a tag team that exclusively wrestled after bingo night and before the parking lot cleared. But behind the name was raw tenacity. Guilmette even beat a young Jon Moxley (back when Jon Moxley was still contractually obligated to bathe) to win the HWA Heavyweight Title. Twice. That’s right: he beat the current patron saint of indie violence with nothing but elbow grease, awkward charisma, and a vertical suplex that made people say, “That was… technically correct.”
Chapter 2: The Reign of the Ridiculously Named
From Heartland to NWA Empire, from Empire State Wrestling to Combat Zone, Guilmette went by Pepper Parks and racked up more belts than a WWE developmental class. He won heavyweight championships, tag championships, cruiserweight championships—though never the championship for Most Reasonable Tanning Habits.
Pepper Parks—often paired with his wife, the nuclear-powered Cherry Bomb—formed the stable TV Ready in CZW, which ironically spent most of its time in promotions no one could watch on actual TV. Still, the duo had style. In a sea of deathmatches and fluorescent light tubes, Parks stood out by being surprisingly competent at actual wrestling. His reward? CZW Tag Team gold and the right to be powerbombed through anything that wasn’t nailed down.
Chapter 3: Braxton Sutter and the Emotional Trauma Factory
In 2016, Pepper Parks entered the Impact Wrestling asylum and was reborn—like a phoenix rising from the ashes of Ring of Honor dark matches—as Braxton Sutter, the most “create-a-wrestler” name since “Lance Steel” or “Johnny Firestorm.” His gimmick? That he was… just kind of a dude. But a dude who could wrestle and somehow got tangled in one of the most bizarre and soap-operatic storylines in Impact history.
Sutter found himself entangled in the Maria Kanellis–Laurel Van Ness–Allie triangle, which played out like a cross between The Bachelor and Raw is War. Sutter, coerced by Maria, was blackmailed into proposing to a perpetually drunk and psychotic Laurel Van Ness—all while pining for the innocent Allie, his actual real-life wife. It was performance art. It was horror cinema. It was also maybe a cry for help.
Eventually, Sutter ditched the girl, turned heel, and made the bold claim that Allie had held him back. Moments later, he was flattened by Brian Cage in a squash so lopsided, it was studied by the Pentagon for asymmetrical warfare tactics. He spent the rest of his Impact run hovering somewhere between “TV filler” and “guy who takes finishers.” And by 2018, like a man staggering out of a tornado, he quietly exited Impact without a single D’Lo Brown bobblehead given in tribute.
Chapter 4: Enter the Butcher, Exit Common Sense
In November 2019, AEW fans were introduced to The Blade in the most confusing television debut since the Shockmaster stumbled into destiny. Cody Rhodes was mid-match when suddenly, a man in a monocle (The Butcher), a masked woman (The Bunny), and a trenchcoat-clad sociopath (The Blade) erupted through the ring mat. Jim Ross reacted like someone had just shown him a TikTok video: utter bafflement.
Turns out, The Blade had entered AEW with his wife Allie (now The Bunny) and the imposing Butcher Andy Williams—yes, the same Andy Williams who was a guitarist in Every Time I Die and, more importantly, looks like the kind of man who could squat a bison. Together, they were The Butcher and The Blade: a tag team that looked like rejected Road Warrior extras and fought like it was always 2 a.m. and someone had insulted their whiskey.
And you know what? It worked.
Whether aligned with MJF, Eddie Kingston, Matt Hardy, or whatever heel faction was being brainstormed in a Jacksonville hotel bar, The Blade always remained AEW’s Swiss Army knife of brutality. He’d tag in, land a few stiff shots, absorb an unnecessary tope suicida, and make his way backstage looking like a bouncer who’d just lost a knife fight to a goose. The Blade, for all his silence and stoicism, became the steady presence in a roster of high-flying chaos goblins.
Chapter 5: The Bleeding Edge of the AEW Undercard
The Blade is not a world champion. He doesn’t do backflips or shoot fiery promos about being “disrespected.” What he does is hurt people. He makes tag matches feel like bar fights. He hits with purpose. He glares with disdain. And his mustache has more emotional range than half the AEW roster.
His tag team with The Butcher has become AEW’s version of a doomsday clock—when they come out, someone is about to bleed or lose a tooth. Or both. And while they’ve never held AEW tag gold, they’ve held the audience’s attention through sheer grit and violent efficiency.
Blade has also become a symbol of longevity. Two decades into a career, across indie hellholes and cable TV, he’s managed to evolve, adapt, and survive. He’s wrestled Jon Moxley before Moxley had a prescription. He’s done deathmatches, comedy bits, soap opera proposals, and now, shows up every week looking like the guy you pray isn’t behind you in line at the bank.
Epilogue: Quiet Carnage
Jesse Guilmette’s journey—from Pepper Parks to Braxton Sutter to The Blade—is less about reinvention and more about revelation. Over the years, he’s trimmed the fat, dulled the gimmicks, and distilled his persona into something potent and unnerving.
He’s not here for your sympathy or your chants. He’s here to hurt someone. Maybe you. Maybe himself. But definitely someone. And that makes him valuable in a world where wrestling increasingly looks like Cirque du Soleil in elbow pads.
He doesn’t need the mic. He’s got the blade.
And that’s enough.