Cody Rhodes never felt, to me, during his tenure in AEW, a company that he had helped get off the ground, like he was the guy that Tony Khan needed to build around.
Rhodes, who was among the group that had helped Khan launch the company in 2019, obviously felt differently, which is to his credit.
“I don’t look at it with any negativity, and here’s why: I got to be part of WWE again,” said Rhodes, in an interview with podcaster Bill Simmons to promote WWE “SummerSlam,” which, at this writing, will have, as its Night 2 main event, a match featuring Rhodes and John Cena for the Undisputed WWE Title.
Rhodes, famously, only wrestled once for the AEW World Title, at the 2019 “Full Gear” pay-per-view, with the gimmick for that match, pitting Rhodes against the inaugural AEW champ, Jon Moxley, being, if Rhodes were to lose, he’d never challenge for the strap again.
Stipulations in pro wrestling are, of course, made to be broken, but Rhodes held to that one after his loss, which came because his kayfabe protégé, MJF, threw in the towel, to set up a feud between those two.
Rhodes made his role in AEW’s early growth phase as being the guy that the secondary TNT Title revolved around, holding that belt three times, and using it to elevate the likes of Jack Perry, Ricky Starks, Eddie Kingston and Sammy Guevara.
As the early years of AEW played out, though, Rhodes’ act started to feel stale – his promos, which he admitted to workshopping with folks behind the scenes, came across as stilted, and his obvious interest in projects outside of wrestling, including his stints on a TBS variety show and a reality-TV show featuring Rhodes and his wife, Brandi, drew heat from AEW fans, many of whom questioned his commitment to the wrestling part of the wrestling business.
Which is why, when Rhodes ended up leaving AEW in early 2022 for a return to WWE, which he had left on bad terms in 2016, it wasn’t a surprise to too many.
The surprise, to me, was that Vince McMahon, then still in charge of the day-to-day operations at WWE, wanted to make Rhodes a foundational piece, building what became a two-year storyline that had him pursuing, and eventually winning, at “Wrestlemania 40,” the Undisputed WWE Title from long-time champ Roman Reigns.
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Rhodes would go on to hold the belt for the next year, before losing it to Cena at “Wrestlemania 41,” the loss being part of a plan by WWE to give Cena an extended retirement-tour sendoff with one final run as the champ.
For Rhodes, the last three years has been an extended full-circle moment, weighed against his earlier run in the company, which saw him struggle and ultimately fail to get over with a series of questionable gimmicks handed to him by McMahon.
“Sometimes people look at me and are like, Oh, he always was going back,” Rhodes said. “I kept making it appear that I had a plan, but really, I wanted to make as much noise and disrupt as much as I could.”
Rhodes remade himself after leaving WWE, with stints in Ring of Honor, TNA and New Japan, where he connected with Matt and Nick Jackson and Kenny Omega, who worked together to put together the inaugural “All In,” a 2018 independent PPV that sold out a 10,000-seat arena in less than 30 minutes, and was the impetus for Khan to begin work on the launch of AEW a year later.
“I found some of the best people around me who were feeling the underground elements of that, and really, like the three that I’d always cite, and I’d feel uncomfortable if I didn’t, Matt and Nick Jackson, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega. That group, and Kevin Owens, God bless him, he’s responsible for it, because he linked us all together. And that connection of my name and my equity, and their skills, and their moxie, and the drive, and just that anger that I had, and what they had, all of that just set up a situation that couldn’t fail,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes admits that wanting to prove WWE wrong was a motivator.
“For me, I was very almost volatile in how I came at it,” Rhodes said. “I had love and reverence for WWE, this is the house that built me, but man, I really wanted, I woke up every day thinking, I want them to know what I could have done. Which is why it’s fun to talk about now, because they came back and got me, which wasn’t on my, that was never part of the master plan.”
Rhodes also admits now, for the first time, that there is “clearly bad blood” to his departure from AEW in 2022.
“But there is also clearly respect and love,” he told Simmons. “In the end, the way I kind of see it is, if I felt disrespected ever at WWE, that’s one thing, that’s a company that was built, that’s the Yankees, that’s the flagship of it all, if I ever felt there I was a number on a sheet … But feeling disrespected at something I built with my friends, we built, feeling disrespected there, I wouldn’t stand for it. Brandi and I both. I’m so blessed to have her, it was one of those where it was, Fuck it, I did way more here than you think, and you’re going to find out the moment I’m out the door.
“I hate saying that with any sense of anger or rage, but I’m, like, the angriest person you’re ever going to meet,” Rhodes said. “I don’t believe in the cold-hearted backstabby type of revenge. The greatest revenge on Earth is success. I felt like we were sitting on something wonderful, something great. Potentially, what I was doing with The American Nightmare, as a bad guy, a good guy, something in between, we’re sitting on something magical. If I’m not going to do it in the house that I literally, with Matt, Nick and Kenny, built, then buddy, I’m going elsewhere.”
It will be fascinating to learn, one day, almost certainly several years out, when all of these guys have hung up the boots for the last time, and start doing their own retrospectives, exactly what it was that went down between the Jacksons, Omega, Khan and Rhodes.
To the credit of Cody Rhodes, he moved on, and he has made the most of his second chance in WWE, not just in the ring, where he is poised to be the champ again, maybe as soon as tonight, but as the face of the company – a role that Khan seemed to envision for Rhodes during his brief tenure in AEW, with the push from Khan to get Rhodes opportunities to be a multimedia star.
“Every day, I’m so blessed that Bruce Prichard, Nick (Khan), Triple H and Vince got me back. I get to live it out now,” said Rhodes, who got a bit wistful as he talked through how things have worked out.
“I got to do it again. I got the quarterback spot at a company where I was last in the combine. I’m very grateful,” he said. “I’m very grateful because, this schism happened, but the outcome is I got to be with the biggest game in town. Not only did I get this spot, I got to show them that I could do it.”
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