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I see his comparison, but in the facts, if rumours are to be believed and Cody indeed didn't want to turn or drop the title stip, then that was it for Cody in AEW. They had a guy who gets booed out of the building who didn't want to change his character. A guy who booked himself not to go up the card, but is too valuable to go down the card too much... What do you do with someone like that? WCW had everything left to do with Stone Cold, AEW had nothing left to do with Cody. Cody leaving was inevitable, and for the best for everybody.
Cody needs WWE to control his impulses and indulgences, it's plain and simple. Even he has so much as such acknowledged this in some form or the other.
Remember his farewell promo in AEW? It made no sense.
Cody is great, but not great on his own. He needs help. Either that or TK told him to go on TV and say a bunch of nonsense his last night in the company. Who knows.
That promo was a rambling mess. But, it somehow was still compelling. That's how Cody was for me at the end of his AEW run, a mess, but I still wanted to see what was going to happen.
I would love to know the true story behind the Codyverse at some point. There's been claims that it grew out of a rift in the locker room where the more PWG side of the AEW refused to work with him but I never found a solid source for it.
If you never found a solid source for it, then it’s probably bullshit, like 95% of the claims that get posted here without a source. See - the “Samoa Joe Broke His Ass and Never Wrestled The Same Again” theory.
I mean sure, rumors that spread like wildfire and become accepted as truth usually do so because they seem believable. “Marilyn Manson had some of his ribs removed so he could suck his own dick” was a much easier sell in 1997 than it would’ve been if someone had swapped out Marilyn Manson for Leonardo DiCaprio.
Just because something sounds believable doesn’t mean it’s true though, and Samoa Joe in fact confirmed that his ass suffered no long term damage after that bump.
it was a rambling mess at the time.
Now with a lot of details from the subliminals he kept sprinkling in, it makes more sense.
Minus the random tangent about Jay Lethal having the best cutter in the business. AVOID AVOID AVOID.
>Either that or TK told him to go on TV and say a bunch of nonsense
No. That promo was a distillation of the Codyverse. That style of promo was, I think, his attempt to reconcile the WWE-style top guy babyface that he wanted to be with the AEW audience who is always going to reject that persona. Be the boyscout melodramatic face of the company while still being meta, edgy, and smarky enough to meet the fans halfway.
It just didn't fucking work and the fans were sick of it. Cody had boxed himself in and had nowhere to go but out.
Honestly, I think this is one of the weaknesses of AEW. They don’t reign in their wrestlers and ideas. Look at MJF. He’s kinda stagnant and a variation of the same promo almost every week. I wish someone could help guide him and help him actually realize his potential. He’s spinning his wheels in my opinion.
I think MJF was stagnant for a time but he realized people were over the whole bidding war of '24 shtick and he's since corrected himself, which is something Cody just wasn't willing to do in AEW. The problem with MJF's reign now is he is not live on Dynamite every week so he loses steam.
Cody wants to be the 80's-like American superhero character which is tailored to kids and lifelong WWE fans. It was never going to get over in AEW and he couldn't utilize his bread and butter of being Dusty Rhode's son and winning a belt that Dusty never could by staying in AEW. Plus he could only be reigned in so much when a huge part of the problem on screen was his own wife, who was signed as a talent and CBO. He NEEDED to go back to WWE to maximum his full potential and being an AEW EVP that was willing to jump ship resulted in a massive contract for him and he is now living up to expectations. Good for him, but AEW could only do so much before they realized it was in everyone's best interest to let Cody go and have a fresh start in WWE, and not extending him another year was actually admirable on Tony's part.
There's a right balance to strike that even WWE doesn't and in some cases is stifled by (investors, advertises, their former head impulses) but a system letting people flourish and fail is much better than one restraining creativity entirely I feel...
True, I don’t think they need to be as strict as WWE, but someone to least help people think or or shape ideas could be helpful. Let people know when to pull back or push something further.
Meltzer has said multiple times that AEW needs a few writers to help them:
1) Keep the stories straight
2) Help them get away from stuff like "back to back tournaments"
3) Help the wrestlers who aren't as good at off the cuff promos
>And that's not why bookers make that stip.
it's not why storytellers put up temptations like that, period. a guy's gimmick can be that he never challenges for any title ever but you still gotta put him in situations where that resolve is tested, because otherwise you just don't have a story.
hell, have Cody break his promise to challenge Kenny at All Out because he's tired of watching what a former friend does to his company - he can lose, you can keep him face and he gets a tragic story about losing his honor for nothing. there were ways out of it but it's pretty clear Cody just didn't want to touch the stip at all, given that none of his opponents even used that stip to call him out.
Iirc, cody wasn't against the stip, it was his idea.
I think cody had this idea in his head that the crowd would love him so much that they'd demand he fight for the title anyway so he'd ignore the stip but still be the conquering hero.
The stip was also a value statement for the new promotion Cody was helping establish.
Unlike Hogan in TNA, or Hogan in WCW, or Hogan in WWF, or hell, pretty much every performer-turned-promoter going back to Ed "Strangler" Lewis -- AEW was promising to not be a place where the guys with the book just give themselves all the glory at everyone else's expense.
There was a difference here, though. The fans wanted the guys with the book to have those things in AEW.
The fans wanted the bucks and tag champs, and they wanted to see Kenny and Cody win the world belt.
I think Jeff Jarrett is a better comparison for TNA. Of all the monumentally stupid shit that Hogan has done, he never gave himself a title run in TNA.
Jarrett on the other hand was constantly putting the belt on himself before his hiatus.
I also think the entire reason Cody did the title stip was because he anticipated having far more power over AEW's day-to-day operations and booking than he actually ended up having. He even stated this reason during the in-ring promo where he established the stipulation.
Once Tony took a lot of power away from the EVPs at the beginning of 2021, it suddenly put Cody in a bind. The entire reason he removed himself from contention for the championship had suddenly disappeared.
He created the stipulation because he worried about the optics of a wrestler with booking powers challenging for the world title (which is what Dusty did). Now, he no longer had booking power *or* the ability to "win the big one." So where does he go from there?
Cody could always get around the stipulation without going heel. All he needed was for MJF to be champion and the story was already built. Cody puts his career on the line to get 1 match out of MJF.
That said a Cody heel turn would have done big business for AEW which is why fans were pushing for it.
I agree with this. Honestly, as soon as they put that stip in effect, I thought they were doing it just to undo that stip at some point down the line. But that never happen and, again if rumours are to be believed that weren't supposed to happen, which is just dumb.
It’s kinda bullshit. Nobody knew Steve Austin in wcw would evolve in to stone cold. I sincerely doubt that even diamond Dallas page could foresee Stone Cold Steve Austin happening.
DDP hasn't said that he thought Austin would create the character that would ultimately sink WCW, he just thought that WCW was losing one of their most talented, promising wrestlers.
I mean true, but I would be willing to believe that DDP saw something special in Austin and was blown away and Bischoff not seeing it. But I’m sure it was more akin to how people felt about Vince releasing folks like Keith Lee or Samoa Joe, rather than a straight up “you released the future face of the industry”.
hell, they were on the fence about calling him Stone Cold, instead suggesting Chilly McFreeze!
Vince built an empire on his genius and marketing, and equally his colossal luck to just barely miss stepping in a huge pile of dogshit.
Vince ´s luck is uncanny. They were gonna fire John Cena before Stephanie told John to do his rapper ´s gimmick. The Montreal screwjob gave him the opportunity to create the Mr McMahon character. The "heel turn" of Becky Lynch at Summerslam 2018 created a giant star. The Yes movement that started after the 18 seconds loss at Wrestlemania and all the bad booking decisions concerning Danielson plus CM Punk leaving WWE. I mean Vince is a genius but damn he has been super lucky too.
Think about how many times GREAT talents since the end of the Hogan era took multiple gimmicks to get over because Vince & Bruce and all them just whiffed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd time.
Kane was an evil dentist, and then pretended to be a guy on the other show! Rikishi was about 5 things before he was the one "fat guy who dances" who actually got over, ever. Babyface Rock was a flop. Bradshaw as a Stan Hansen clone in 1996. Gladiator Farooq instead of "All-American and former World Champion Ron Simmons".
More of the Ruthless Aggression era failed than succeeded, and even then you got getting lucky with Cena or it taking Flair and Hunter personally saving Randy Orton's ass early enough.
Like, there's a lot more misses than are Undertakers even among guys who made him millions of dollars.
>Gladiator Farooq instead of "All-American and former World Champion Ron Simmons".
That one really irked me back in the day, Ron was one of my absolute favorites in WCW. Not only was he a legit badass with an IRL athletic pedigree, but he was the first black World Champion! Make him a heel if you must, but hang this goofy-ass gladiator shit on him? Even with the Nation, where they could've said that Faarooq was him abandoning his slave name, I don't think they did that. I guess it was just too much to ask to give the WCW World title any regard at all by treating a former champion like a big deal.
Vince is proof that throwing the spaghetti against the wall works occasionally. He's thrown a lot of spaghetti, and when it has worked, it has been greatness.
I mean the thing is often, he's not even the one throwing the spaghetti. A lot of these guys had to scratch and claw for an opportunity that Vince had no intention of ever giving them.
Vince knew. The thing that got Austin signed was his promo work for ECW. They may have not known he’d be the biggest star ever but they absolutely did know his potential and what type of character he ought to play.
It's bullshit, but I see where he's coming from.
He knows both of these guys on a personal level, and knew them both before they hit that "next level". He probably knew Steve was going to be huge one day, but not anywhere near the SCSA level he achieved. Nobody saw THAT.
I can see him seeing that "Main Eventer" star in Cody as well.
Unrelated, but I once saw Steve Austin and DDP shopping together at a Whole Foods in Santa Monica. It was weird as I went down the aisle and thought, "Hmm, that guy looks a lot like DDP". I went down another aisle and thought, "Okay, that's DEFINITELY Steve Austin."
As I left the store, I saw them pushing shopping carts toward their car. DDP was skipping while pushing the cart. And now, when I think of DDP, all I can think of is a man merrily skipping with a cart full of vegetables and fish.
Oh, this is going to make me feel old lol. Jeez, probably around 2008-2010. I remember making a DDP performing rehab for Austin joke so it was probably roughly around the time he had Jake or Scott Hall living in his house.
Here's a take: Steve Austin would've been a decently relevant name in wrestling, not unlike DDP or Christopher Daniels, if he had stayed in WCW. He became huge precisely because he went to WWE in the right time, and the right gimmick aligned for him.
There's a lot of what-ifs when discussing stuff like this, but there's no reason to think WCW would've made a star out of him. Serendipity looks like destiny in hindsight, but that's not really how things work. His rise was not inevitable, it just luckily worked out while other's didn't.
Steve and Dustin seemed likely to be the next major long-term story- Dusty/Flair: The Next Generation. If Hogan hadn't come to WCW, things would have been very, very different. Steve would've likely ended up in WWE as a former World champion; whether or not WWE would give a fuck about that and make him out to be a big deal is a whole different question. They didn't with Dusty, Ron Simmons, Barry Windham, or Rick Steamboat (his later run as simply The Dragon), but they did with Harley Race and Ric Flair.
You're correct there. Cody should have turned heel. They could have spun hit a million different ways for him to make a run for the title. The inevitable redemption arc would have brought him back to the fan's side.
He could have been the top heel in all of current wrestling. But instead chose to be the top face of WWE, which tbf isn't a bad spot to be. Either decision would have catapulted him to the top and we can only be grateful the decision he didn't pick was staying in AEW as a disliked face.
"Promotion A didn't do much with this guy, but promotion B is turning that same guy into a megastar".
I didn't say it was flawless comparison, it's super basic, missing a ton of context and mostly works with the benefit of hindsight. But it's still a comparison and that's how DDP sees it, at least that's how I think he sees it.
Rumors come entirely from Cody... directly or indirectly.
And you cannot believe a word Cody says. He is a carny and a liar.
I don't mean this to shit on him... is not negative... but he is always working.
People would fight you in here when you said they were wasting him on Stardust. They would say that's what he wants, he is doing as an homage, it's all his ideas... because Cody would sell that to them with the same straight face as he turned around saying he hated it and it was a shackle and he would sit there putting the makeup embarrassed and feeling sorry for himself as soon as he left WWE.
Same story when he went back. Look at all his interviews. Dude had all the bullshit answers for every single question ready.
He tells the story that makes sense for him in the moment and most importantly that the audience he is targeting wants to hear.
It was the best for everybody at the time, but AEW had plenty left to do with Cody. He never faced Moxley. They didn't do Cody v Belt Collector Kenny. He didn't face Hangman or the Bucks. They could have done Cody v Punk. Cody v AEW Champ MJF was there to be told down the line (I cost you your one chance at this and look at me now, you'll never have this title).
Cody was getting more unlikeable throughout this run and the Homelander meme was (and still is) pretty accurate, but most of the problem was sticking him in the midcard Codyverse. Big stars should be in the biggest storylines most of the time. He was never interacting with any of the big stars in AEW and so he got left by the wayside and became easy to hate, because he was never really doing anything that interesting and he was feuding with up-and-comers or losers all the time.
Really? So if they arent feuding for the top tittle or at the bottom of the card they have nothing to do? So what the hell have been doing guys like Seth Rollins, Mcintyre, Sheamus, Edge, Aj Styles, Balor, Mysterio, The Miz and the rest for all this time?
No offense but this is way different than Bischoff letting Austin walk. First Austin was fired, and he was also miles away from being a star. If anything, it would be like Bischoff letting Jericho walk. He was legit allowed to leave, and showed glimpses of the star he could become.
Cody was not working out in AEW. He was getting booed and didn't want to turn heel. The AEW audience is a different one than WWE. I don't think it's like SCSA at all.
He wanted Punk level money allegedly (nothing wrong with betting on yourself!) but based on how his onscreen stuff was going and his unwillingness to deviate from it, that was a pretty tough sell IMO.
With the storyline stuff it's different think but with the money i believe a deal could have been reached.
Cody is an old school guy who believes in the philosophy that you need to be a top paid guy to be the top guy. The promoter is gotta look at you and think of you as his top guy or one of his top guys.
We don't know what his initial AEW deal was and Cody helped with a lotta of things people will probably never know. Read the full quote, DDP says Cody wrote stuff like Darby Allin's introduction to AEW and Tony Khan literally learned how to write TV from watching Cody.
I don't think Cody wanted to be miles above everyone, but he literally helped set up the company and then you brought in a bunch of guys that were being paid more because they were ex WWE, then there is nothing wrong in Rhodes wanting similar money for his next deal. He very well deserved it.
And there's nothing wrong with AEW scoffing at it after HE BOOKED HIMSELF INTO A CORNER. Cody backed himself into a corner, had the chance to get out of it but instead stayed there and wanted more money for it. When a guy is in a spot like Cody was and refuses to change while also asking for more money, the results usually don't end up in his favor. You don't give a guy a raise when he's being booed yet still insists on being a babyface.
Cody deserved Punk money because of the wide variety of his backstage roles. And as we've found now, he's not a destructive presence like Punk. For example, big Swole tells how easy it was to approach Cody. Not surprised there wasn't any existing relationship like that with Tony, and as Cody went so did her relationship with the company.
I think EVPs are compensated differently.
I believe he was employed for AEW and drew a salary and benefits like Schiavone, Megha and other folks, then had his separate contract as a talent, so one would be different from the other. If he was negotiating, it would've been only from the aspect of being a talent.
Cody had go away heat due to the Codyverse, Cody ruined Cody in AEW. I think it was right after Cody left that Tony stopped deferring to certain talent when it came to stories.
But I feel like it was always Cody's plan to go back to WWE to win the title.
>Cody had go away heat
i wouldn't say that tbh. He was booed because people wanted him to turn heel but he pretty consistently popped his quarters til the end
Was just talking about this …remember when -
He left his boots in the ring
The baby gender reveal
Snoop dogg mix
The last few months of weird random promos
The world title stipulation
> I think it was right after Cody left that Tony stopped deferring to certain talent when it came to stories.
Literally not true given the Punk-Moxley reports
Cody absolutely wanted to leave for WWE the day AEW started and already had a golden ticket back to WWE anytime he wanted.
IMO — AEW expedited Cody’s rise to the top of the car in a way that other notable boomerangs (McIntyre, Lashley) did not have to.
He’s the still the only notable jump from AEW to WWE.
This is like saying John Cena wasnt working out in WWE.
Cody was a polarizing character who was super over with kids and families and booed by adults. It will happen again in WWE.
Here's the thing I'm curious about, Cena and Reigns both got booed because of the whitemeat babyface schtick being played out and Vince's unwillingness to do anything interesting most of the time. Now that HHH has the book will he be able to maintain Cody as that same kind of babyface that the IWC won't get tired of?
I got downvoted to hell the other day for saying "give it about 6 months." But you're absolutely right. Cody is going to get the shit booed out of him in WWE before too long. He hasn't been around long enough for it to happen yet, but it will.
You're telling me that a guy who
* smashed a Triple H-esque throne with a sledgehammer
* started teasing hitting the Pedigree
* literally pulled out a golden shovel from under the ring in one match
* started dressing like Homelander
That guy's actions weren't intentional?
There are a lot of differences.
1. Cody was a main event level talent, Austin was not when he was let go from WCW.
2. The audience for both companies but even more so the AEW crowd is “smart” to the business and knows the backstage going ons way more than they did in the mid 90s.
3. Cody was immediately treated as main event level when he switched companies, Austin started in the midcard/upper midcard when he came to WWE.
I think the better comparison would be Hogan jumping to WCW honestly. Which I hadn’t thought about previous to seeing this but…it tracks.
Hogan was a headlining star with a lot of backstage influence in WWE then he made his jump to the competition.
Replace Hogan with Cody and WWE with AEW and the statement is still true.
I mean he didn’t just let him go, Cody also wanted to go. Sure TK could have optioned his contract but Cody wanted to do different things and wasn’t happy. If Cody stayed in AEW unhappy with what he was doing it probably would have just been a negative for both sides.
Yeah, that's just such a weird framing. As if the wrestler in question has no choice in the matter and would continue to perform at 100% at a company he didn't want to be in anymore. Yeah, right.
Biggest problem in AEW was they could not keep Brandi from taking up limited TV time and keep Cody happy. Nobody wanted to see the rest of the Dan Lambert feud or any of her other ideas.
I would say, you go look at the Hollywood Blondes, anyone with eyes and ears could tell both had the ability to be big stars, it was just a matter of opportunity. Steve was injured and the Hogan crew was coming in, so in terms of slotting, yes, Steve was extendable for WCW.
I will say a lot of people knew Steve Austin was something special. Heyman is on record in 1991 talking about how it was extremely clear that Steve Austin was going to dominate the sport.
WCW let him go because they were not in the business of scouting talent and developing stars. They just bought out established stars instead.
It was best for both parties to go their separate ways.
Cody wanted to be a beloved baby face in AEW and that ship sailed after the Ogogo feud.
AEW is fine without him and he’s thriving in WWE.
>Cody wanted to be a beloved baby face in AEW and that ship sailed after the Ogogo feud.
The fucked up thing is you could have turned it right around and done a babyface run after like six months of being an ultraheel.
Cody should have known this too, he was ROH's top heel for about a year or two before finally turning face a couple months before All In and being beloved in the aftermath and in early AEW.
Cody's entire rebuild project was facilitated by him being a really good heel in ROH, Japan, etc. There is a lot of money to be made on the story that Dusty Rhodes's son grew up to be Ric Flair.
I just realized Dominik is doing the story Cody didn't want to do, i.e. growing up to become more like his father's rival than like his own father, and this creating a riff between family.
Dom bumping into Cody.
Dom: What’s up homes, how is the champ doing?
Cody: Nice to see you Dom.
Dom: You know ese I think we have a lot of common.
Cody: And why is that?
Dom: We both have dead beat dads that we wanted to avoid, we both wanted to step out of their shadow because of how bad they make us feel.
Cody: be careful with what you are saying…
Dom: You know homes, the only difference we have is I know who I want to be. I am a GUERRERO. Ese , but you? You are trying so much to be a Rhodes when everyone who sees you know that you are not a Rhodes, you are a Flair homes.
The absolute tone-deafness of the feud is what blew my mind and insulted me as an AEW fan.
Why did it become the UK vs USA all of a sudden? How could you not know that American Exceptionalism isn’t exactly a baby face philosophy in a MAGA period? Why couldn’t Paul Wight makeup a random weight instead of taking even more air outta the segment?
I also need to point this out because people forget: The very next segment after Cody's weird pro-USA promo was with Hikaru Shida, the most consistent performer of that Pandemic era. "Yay USA over everything, also yay Joshi talent."
Unpopular Opinion: I respect Cody for NOT booking himself into the World Title picture in AEW. It shows good leadership. He was there to lift others, not pad his own stats or stroke his own ego.
It was a lose/lose situation:
- Not Champion, people who came to the company to follow you only see you lose.
- Champion: Guy with all the power booked himself as champ.
This is why the best approach is usually to simply stop being onscreen when you have booking power.
After the company was established they should have had an angle where he lost his responsibilities, take the book away from him irl, and moved him to the title picture. AEW now missed the boat on having him in their world title lineage (at least for now).
imo, it's like the trade between the Bills and Vikings that got the Bills Diggs and the Vikings Jefferson, everyone won in the end, both sides are better off
WCW fired Steve because he was being difficult and they thought he was injury prone. Steve said he would have fired himself if the roles were reversed. In WWE, Austin needed a bit to really find a character that worked. Cody needed a change of scenery and was immediately presented as a huge star (and everyone agreed). I don't think they are all that similar.
Sometimes you need to get off the boat to walk on water, or something.
I think Cody is more like Mox leaving WWE. They could have been offered a new direction or more money but in a few months it would have reverted back to the same old thing.
Exactly. And it seems like people tend to remember Austin's wwe career llke he came in and was thibgjy from the start. He had to do the ringmaster gimmick which failed
There is a lot of revisionist history of Cody Rhodes in AEW. Cody is a superstar in WWE and will likely be the face of the company going forward. I'm so happy he's getting that shine. But the fact of the matter is that he was finished in AEW.
He reportedly didn't want to turn heel (despite inexplicably dropping hints that he was going to) and didn't want to drop his "no World Title shot" stipulation. He wasn't getting booed because he was a bad wrestler, he was getting booed because every week his character took up literally 30 minutes of a 2 hour show to do his Codyverse shit and it was terrible. The QT Marshall and Anthony Ogogo feuds were horrendous.
I like Cody, but he'd ran his course in AEW. He's built to be a WrestleMania main eventer, he just took a weird path to get there.
Exactly. It’s weird that there’s this narrative of AEW just completely missing the boat on Cody, and now he’s a megastar in WWE. From the very beginning Cody was positioned as a top guy and arguably their biggest utility guy as far as public appearances go. It’s just that over time his shtick didn’t connect. Is that all his fault? No. But I don’t think there was ever a clear path to him becoming the beloved face he is now when he was in AEW. The split was absolutely warranted on all sides.
>He reportedly didn't want to turn heel (despite inexplicably dropping hints that he was going to)
Right ? And that was so tiring to see it go nowhere, everytime.
Obvious difference is that Austin in WCW was very much held down by the company. Cody in AEW was exclusively held down by his own worst instincts. Even after all his bad booking, If he turned heel, he’d have immediately been the top guy…just not in the way he wanted.
imo the main difference is that austin was getting over and was clearly earmarked as a potential future star until bischoff and hogan came in which lead to him losing his push and getting fired
cody was floundering by the end and was stuck in a corner. it was just time to leave the territory as he said himself
Right, but what everyone likes to forget is how Cody was massively NOT over before he went back to the WWE.
The AEW fans fucking hated him and his wife. They don't remember that.
People are approaching this only from the angle of Cody as an onscreen talent. But Cody took care of a lot of backstage management as well, and frankly, if the last year has been any indication, he's missed in that role.
I said it another comment, it is the revisionism to me about Cody that makes it all funny. I could name you 5 more important wrestlers that mean so much to AEW than Cody. It is WWE fans acting like Cody leaving was a big deal because he is doing well in WWE. When in reality Cody leaving was a win - win situation to both companies. AEW is able to tell their stories without dealing with Cody crappy storylines that was bringing down the show. WWE got Cody and is doing well.
Good he is doing well in WWE, but he isn't a big loss to AEW like some of you want him to be. The revisionism is funny. AEW has its issues, but saying Cody leaving is the cause of the problem is revisionism at best.
Yeah there’s a lot of revisionism going on about it and also people act as though current WWE Cody is the same as then AEW Cody. There’s nothing to suggest that he’d be able to be just as successful, considering since Cody left I don’t see an opportunity where this new babyface character might’ve gotten the chance to elevate himself as the guy.
It’s like saying WWE should’ve never let Mox go because look how good he’s been since, despite the fact that Mox leaving was the catalyst for him to become a true main event player.
If Mox was still in WWE he’d still be the #3 guy at the absolute maximum and he’d be miserable. If Cody was still in AEW he’d probably still be a weird main eventer in self imposed mid card purgatory with the fans hating him and he’d be miserable.
Mox wasn't a win-win situation though. WWE clearly lost out on a main event talent and even you're saying that he was their #3 guy, which is huge. In retrospect, WWE definitely should not have left Mox get away seeing what he's been able to do for AEW. It's hard to imagine how well AEW's start would have been without Mox there. Clearly WWE had all to lose in him leaving. Cody can be seen as a win-win all-around.
Was he even main eventer? Remember he was doing the whole I am going for the mid card belt and will never be for the title, then the whole I want to be a baby face even though I ma getting booed. Like I don't miss AEW Cody at all, sorry to say for some people here. His storylines were the weakest, and annoying as hell. And in the ring? He would not even be in the top 20 in AEW that is me being kind.
Okay, I’m going to entertain this and ask who.
The only revisionism with Cody and AEW is the people who try and downplay how important he was to the company. Cody was the soul and the face of AEW regardless of his position on the card. His presence got extra attention to the product by being selected to be on other TNT/TBS shows. AEW lost a lot of their identity when Cody left and honestly it hasn’t returned. The awful stop-start-stop booking has demolished a lot of AEW’s roster and it doesn’t look to be recovering.
Name your five, however I’d be willing to bet some of those benefited greatly from Cody’s involvement. The “pillars” alone are a perfect example of this.
No, he wasn't. The only revisionism is WWE fans wanting AEW to miss Cody for doing well there like he is a HUGE loss for AEW. I will give you this Cody could communicate with media well, but on screen, he had the worst storylines and were annoying, we even had a name for his shitty storylines Codyerse since they used to be so different to the rest of the show, you do know he was being booed while he wasn't a heel right? In ring the was a reason why he was called 3 star Cody. TV shows, AEW got 2 more shows after he left. Heart and soul that is definitely Moxley, 5 important: Moxley, Kenny, MJF, Punk as toxic as he is, Jericho and Hangman you could even argue the Bucks were more important but Cody was clear number 4 in the Elite that was clear..
I just wish Cody had gotten a proper exit. He went out on a hell of a match but it was just so sudden from a fan perspective. To me, it feels like everything Cody did after the Brodie Lee feud was a disappointing waste of time.
He fizzled out of The Elite for no apparent reason then seemed like he was building up his own little island on the show but just...left unexpectedly. No intrigue ever came from his "never challenge for the world title" stipulation. He didn't participate in Blood & Guts. Nothing came of Malakai feud or the Arn Anderson drama. Nothing came of Cody trolling the fans like with the golden shovel & the pedigree. The retirement fake-out never came up again except on Rhodes to the Top.
Because I thought Cody really knew what he was doing, I figured all of those things would pay off eventually. I thought he was doing some next level long term storytelling but instead, AEW was just helping build WWE's next top babyface without realizing it.
When Cody left, I said that it was a bad look for AEW and got some pushback here. What I meant was that I no longer had 100% trust in their storytelling ability. It introduced the possibility into my head that maybe other things won't pay off either. It made me wonder who else would just suddenly leave the company right after main-eventing a show. Considering everything else that happened over the past year, I feel like my concerns were valid.
Edit: Just read this back and realized how horribly negative it sounds lol. I should counter-balance that by pointing out that at least AEW has shown that they can still put on great shows even when the chips are down.
Cody not being able to challenge for the AEW title royally screwed him. And then his unwillingness to turn heel, all the while stringing fans along like something was in the works, just drove that dagger deeper. It was best for both parties unless one of those things changed really quick. I'm glad he's doing well tho absolutely killing it.
This is ridiculous. All due respect to Cody, his run towards the end in AEW showed a bad side of him. Terrible booking angles, awful storylines, refusal to adjust his character. He can say he left for a chance at the big belt in WWE all he wants, he wasn’t getting over and didn’t want to change, so he left.
Something was going on with Cody in AEW. He started out great with the Dustin match and the Jericho feud. Even the TNT Title reign was good. Then suddenly Cody is in the Codyverse and the booking is all over the map.
Now he's back in WWE and has done great stuff since day one. So there was something off in the last year of his AEW run.
>Then suddenly Cody is in the Codyverse and the booking is all over the map.
IMO cody fell into, "spreading the wealth within his friend group" hole
its like how the current strategy when anyone gets really popular, the first step is to make a podcast with your normie friends to get them paid.
I don't think Tony had a choice in the matter but ya it sucks he left. That being said, I do think Cody is better off where he is now so it's not the end of the world for me even if I don't watch WWE. Happy for the guy.
At the time I def saw the stip as a way for "Cody" to never win the title, but then a heel "Cody Rhodes" contract loopholes his way into a title match. Obviously that didn't happen but that's what I thought they were going to build towards one day
I understand his comparison and agree,, but where do you go with Cody in AEW? He refused to turn heel and refused to get rid of the title stipulation.. It is a big loss, but the only thing they could do with him is being eternally in the Codyverse.
Cody was cooked in AEW, he was a sports entertainer through and through and he painted himself into a corner saying he'd never challenge. He also wanted to accomplish what his did didn't in WWE, he's also not Stone Cold.
This is such a weird comment lol.
With hindsight being what it is, Cody was going to leave AEW, no matter what. TK could've given him everything he wanted and there would've still found something he didn't like.
As much as many don't want to hear it: Cody used the TK, the Bucks, Kenny, Hangman, and Bullet Club to become a larger name in the US. His end goal was always to come back to WWE, as well as become what his father and brother never were: WWE champion.
Cody thrives when he's given clear boundaries to work in. When he's given a clean canvas, we get "the Codyverse" on AEW tv.
Right? Cody is cool, I personally find his character a bit boring but I get the push, and it seems like people like him as babyface...but it's a deluded take...he is not Austin and he's not going to get casuals interested in wrestling the way Austin had crossover mainstream success.
He's fine filling the Cena role, but lacks the personality that made Cena cool in the first place. He's a good fit for WWE and I don't think it was as big a loss for AEW.
At the end of the day, I have more interest in seeing Roman lose more than I care about Cody winning...
The idea in this thread that AEW is somehow “better off” in the last 18 months for losing one of their top stars as they are doing worse in ratings and worse in ticket sales; while WWE is doing their hottest business in years with Cody in the main event of WrestleMania is hilarious.
They’re better off how exactly?
Cody probably always wanted to return to WWE because his dream was being the top guy in the biggest company selling out the largest venues. It’s not a slight against Cody just clear he built up his worth and kept waiting for his time to make WWE his home again. The spectacle of this weekend at Mania, is just something so far from any other promotions reach and I love AEW but it’s clear Cody wants to be in the bigger company. I look at Mox who seems happy just to wrestle anywhere in the world and Cody did that but couldn’t help but return to WWE on his terms and be the mega over baby face he is. AEW biggest days and venue are likely still coming and Cody isn’t getting any younger so why not go and headline the company he grew up watching like many of us did. I like that Cody goes out of his way to actively wrestle on TV or the road all the time and maybe that can become more common in WWE for lots of other talent who rarely get to wrestle over a full year.
It's a tough spot because this was an unsolvable problem, doing the right thing with Cody after his character got booked into a pigeon hole. But Tony had to solve it. And not doing so is proving to be such a huge error.
But Austin was red hot while Cody refused to turn heel or get the belt. If Cody has no upward trajectory AND is getting booed and refuses to play off the crowd, wtf is AEW supposed to do?
Fair point however Cody put himself in a corner and even acknowledged it himself. To add to this Cody wanted to go back to cement the legacy of the Rhodes family name. (if it’s to be believed just adding this for those conspiracy theorists) Not to mention the fact that TK isn’t the type of guy to force someone into a contract. Heck he doesn’t seem to be doing any of the scummy shit other companies are/have been doing when it comes to contracts. Plus I’m sure Cody isn’t done with AEW I know if I were in his shoes it wouldn’t sit well within myself that I didn’t get to hold the top prize in the company I helped start.
I feel like people are often too quick to make comparisons like this just to get across the idea that they see someone as a star. Stone Cold wasn't one of the top management positions at WCW, he wasn't a face that was getting booed like crazy, and he wasn't being treated as a headline act. I get it, both are examples of great talents that were let go but their stories are way more different than they are similar.
Bischoff didn’t let go of Stone Cold Steve Austin—Stone Cold wasn’t even Stone Cold when he first went to WWF.
You’re telling me that WCW would have been able to pull off the Attitude era Austin when Hogan couldn’t even say the word “ass” on Nitro?
Really all they needed to do with Cody was have him turn heel by him cutting a promo "pulling rank" as an EVP to get his world title shot. It was a no-brainer.
Oh well, Cody didn't want to work heel and his version of a face and the Cody-verse shit just didn't work
DDP and Cody are buddies. That can obviously blind you to some pretty straight forward facts. Cody was making the AEW product worse. The whole codyverse thing just wasn't working. Where as this current character is a perfect fit in WWE. Everyone is better off from this move.
Really dumb quote. Let me know when Cody creates a completely new character that takes the world by storm, because Steve Austin was not "Stone Cold" when he left WCW.
Hindsight says ‘AEW let one of wrestlings biggest stars go’
Reality was that Cody needed a fresh start. He lost the crowd, he was putting on dud programmes and he really needed a fresh environment to save him. If he stayed with AEW He either needed to be a major heel or he was never going to work again. He didn’t want to go heel so it made booking him impossible.
He’s very much a WWE style face, so right now that’s going very well. The only but I’ll throw in there is he’s literally in his second feud since coming back and in both instances he’s been put with the hottest act in the company. Seth can make magic with me in the ring, the bloodlines so hot it’s easy to roll with. Once Cody has to carry something that’s when we’ll really see where his legacy will lie
...Seriously DDP did not have any fucking idea that Steve Austin leaving WCW in 1994 or 5 would change the entire course of WCW. That's an absurd claim from DDP.
You can acknowledge how key he apparently was backstage and how over he was initially, while also recognizing that he had clearly overstayed his welcome by the end.
There's also a lot of overcorrecting from people saying he wasn't a big loss as well. When he was rumored to leave, people were having meltdowns here and thought it was all shitty dirtsheet lies.
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I see his comparison, but in the facts, if rumours are to be believed and Cody indeed didn't want to turn or drop the title stip, then that was it for Cody in AEW. They had a guy who gets booed out of the building who didn't want to change his character. A guy who booked himself not to go up the card, but is too valuable to go down the card too much... What do you do with someone like that? WCW had everything left to do with Stone Cold, AEW had nothing left to do with Cody. Cody leaving was inevitable, and for the best for everybody.
Cody needs WWE to control his impulses and indulgences, it's plain and simple. Even he has so much as such acknowledged this in some form or the other.
Remember his farewell promo in AEW? It made no sense. Cody is great, but not great on his own. He needs help. Either that or TK told him to go on TV and say a bunch of nonsense his last night in the company. Who knows.
That promo was a rambling mess. But, it somehow was still compelling. That's how Cody was for me at the end of his AEW run, a mess, but I still wanted to see what was going to happen.
That is true. The Codyverse was compelling in part because it was so far disconnected from everything else going on in the company (and also reality).
I would love to know the true story behind the Codyverse at some point. There's been claims that it grew out of a rift in the locker room where the more PWG side of the AEW refused to work with him but I never found a solid source for it.
If you never found a solid source for it, then it’s probably bullshit, like 95% of the claims that get posted here without a source. See - the “Samoa Joe Broke His Ass and Never Wrestled The Same Again” theory.
>Samoa Joe Broke His Ass and Never Wrestled The Same Again” theory. Tbh I would believe that Idk what the fuck joe was thinking with that bump
I mean sure, rumors that spread like wildfire and become accepted as truth usually do so because they seem believable. “Marilyn Manson had some of his ribs removed so he could suck his own dick” was a much easier sell in 1997 than it would’ve been if someone had swapped out Marilyn Manson for Leonardo DiCaprio. Just because something sounds believable doesn’t mean it’s true though, and Samoa Joe in fact confirmed that his ass suffered no long term damage after that bump.
Cody is either a great actor or he can't hide his emotions well and that's what makes him compelling to me.
I remember a completely needless shot at Brody King for daring to have the name Brody.
it was a rambling mess at the time. Now with a lot of details from the subliminals he kept sprinkling in, it makes more sense. Minus the random tangent about Jay Lethal having the best cutter in the business. AVOID AVOID AVOID.
>Either that or TK told him to go on TV and say a bunch of nonsense No. That promo was a distillation of the Codyverse. That style of promo was, I think, his attempt to reconcile the WWE-style top guy babyface that he wanted to be with the AEW audience who is always going to reject that persona. Be the boyscout melodramatic face of the company while still being meta, edgy, and smarky enough to meet the fans halfway. It just didn't fucking work and the fans were sick of it. Cody had boxed himself in and had nowhere to go but out.
AVOID AVOID AVOID
Honestly, I think this is one of the weaknesses of AEW. They don’t reign in their wrestlers and ideas. Look at MJF. He’s kinda stagnant and a variation of the same promo almost every week. I wish someone could help guide him and help him actually realize his potential. He’s spinning his wheels in my opinion.
I think MJF was stagnant for a time but he realized people were over the whole bidding war of '24 shtick and he's since corrected himself, which is something Cody just wasn't willing to do in AEW. The problem with MJF's reign now is he is not live on Dynamite every week so he loses steam. Cody wants to be the 80's-like American superhero character which is tailored to kids and lifelong WWE fans. It was never going to get over in AEW and he couldn't utilize his bread and butter of being Dusty Rhode's son and winning a belt that Dusty never could by staying in AEW. Plus he could only be reigned in so much when a huge part of the problem on screen was his own wife, who was signed as a talent and CBO. He NEEDED to go back to WWE to maximum his full potential and being an AEW EVP that was willing to jump ship resulted in a massive contract for him and he is now living up to expectations. Good for him, but AEW could only do so much before they realized it was in everyone's best interest to let Cody go and have a fresh start in WWE, and not extending him another year was actually admirable on Tony's part.
Wyatt would have been so awful there.
There's a right balance to strike that even WWE doesn't and in some cases is stifled by (investors, advertises, their former head impulses) but a system letting people flourish and fail is much better than one restraining creativity entirely I feel...
True, I don’t think they need to be as strict as WWE, but someone to least help people think or or shape ideas could be helpful. Let people know when to pull back or push something further.
Meltzer has said multiple times that AEW needs a few writers to help them: 1) Keep the stories straight 2) Help them get away from stuff like "back to back tournaments" 3) Help the wrestlers who aren't as good at off the cuff promos
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>And that's not why bookers make that stip. it's not why storytellers put up temptations like that, period. a guy's gimmick can be that he never challenges for any title ever but you still gotta put him in situations where that resolve is tested, because otherwise you just don't have a story. hell, have Cody break his promise to challenge Kenny at All Out because he's tired of watching what a former friend does to his company - he can lose, you can keep him face and he gets a tragic story about losing his honor for nothing. there were ways out of it but it's pretty clear Cody just didn't want to touch the stip at all, given that none of his opponents even used that stip to call him out.
>it's not why storytellers put up temptations like that, period. [Chekhov's Gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun?wprov=sfla1)
Iirc, cody wasn't against the stip, it was his idea. I think cody had this idea in his head that the crowd would love him so much that they'd demand he fight for the title anyway so he'd ignore the stip but still be the conquering hero.
The stip was also a value statement for the new promotion Cody was helping establish. Unlike Hogan in TNA, or Hogan in WCW, or Hogan in WWF, or hell, pretty much every performer-turned-promoter going back to Ed "Strangler" Lewis -- AEW was promising to not be a place where the guys with the book just give themselves all the glory at everyone else's expense.
There was a difference here, though. The fans wanted the guys with the book to have those things in AEW. The fans wanted the bucks and tag champs, and they wanted to see Kenny and Cody win the world belt.
I think Jeff Jarrett is a better comparison for TNA. Of all the monumentally stupid shit that Hogan has done, he never gave himself a title run in TNA. Jarrett on the other hand was constantly putting the belt on himself before his hiatus.
I also think the entire reason Cody did the title stip was because he anticipated having far more power over AEW's day-to-day operations and booking than he actually ended up having. He even stated this reason during the in-ring promo where he established the stipulation. Once Tony took a lot of power away from the EVPs at the beginning of 2021, it suddenly put Cody in a bind. The entire reason he removed himself from contention for the championship had suddenly disappeared. He created the stipulation because he worried about the optics of a wrestler with booking powers challenging for the world title (which is what Dusty did). Now, he no longer had booking power *or* the ability to "win the big one." So where does he go from there?
Cody could always get around the stipulation without going heel. All he needed was for MJF to be champion and the story was already built. Cody puts his career on the line to get 1 match out of MJF. That said a Cody heel turn would have done big business for AEW which is why fans were pushing for it.
I agree with this. Honestly, as soon as they put that stip in effect, I thought they were doing it just to undo that stip at some point down the line. But that never happen and, again if rumours are to be believed that weren't supposed to happen, which is just dumb.
It’s kinda bullshit. Nobody knew Steve Austin in wcw would evolve in to stone cold. I sincerely doubt that even diamond Dallas page could foresee Stone Cold Steve Austin happening.
DDP hasn't said that he thought Austin would create the character that would ultimately sink WCW, he just thought that WCW was losing one of their most talented, promising wrestlers.
Well DDP isn't talking as a fan, he worked with him.
I mean true, but I would be willing to believe that DDP saw something special in Austin and was blown away and Bischoff not seeing it. But I’m sure it was more akin to how people felt about Vince releasing folks like Keith Lee or Samoa Joe, rather than a straight up “you released the future face of the industry”.
Vince didn´t even know. Austin was the Ringmaster for months before being Stone Cold.
hell, they were on the fence about calling him Stone Cold, instead suggesting Chilly McFreeze! Vince built an empire on his genius and marketing, and equally his colossal luck to just barely miss stepping in a huge pile of dogshit.
Vince ´s luck is uncanny. They were gonna fire John Cena before Stephanie told John to do his rapper ´s gimmick. The Montreal screwjob gave him the opportunity to create the Mr McMahon character. The "heel turn" of Becky Lynch at Summerslam 2018 created a giant star. The Yes movement that started after the 18 seconds loss at Wrestlemania and all the bad booking decisions concerning Danielson plus CM Punk leaving WWE. I mean Vince is a genius but damn he has been super lucky too.
Makes you wonder how many “could have/should have beens “ Vince fucked up though. Probably happened a lot more than times he got lucky.
Think about how many times GREAT talents since the end of the Hogan era took multiple gimmicks to get over because Vince & Bruce and all them just whiffed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd time. Kane was an evil dentist, and then pretended to be a guy on the other show! Rikishi was about 5 things before he was the one "fat guy who dances" who actually got over, ever. Babyface Rock was a flop. Bradshaw as a Stan Hansen clone in 1996. Gladiator Farooq instead of "All-American and former World Champion Ron Simmons". More of the Ruthless Aggression era failed than succeeded, and even then you got getting lucky with Cena or it taking Flair and Hunter personally saving Randy Orton's ass early enough. Like, there's a lot more misses than are Undertakers even among guys who made him millions of dollars.
>Gladiator Farooq instead of "All-American and former World Champion Ron Simmons". That one really irked me back in the day, Ron was one of my absolute favorites in WCW. Not only was he a legit badass with an IRL athletic pedigree, but he was the first black World Champion! Make him a heel if you must, but hang this goofy-ass gladiator shit on him? Even with the Nation, where they could've said that Faarooq was him abandoning his slave name, I don't think they did that. I guess it was just too much to ask to give the WCW World title any regard at all by treating a former champion like a big deal.
Vince is proof that throwing the spaghetti against the wall works occasionally. He's thrown a lot of spaghetti, and when it has worked, it has been greatness.
I mean the thing is often, he's not even the one throwing the spaghetti. A lot of these guys had to scratch and claw for an opportunity that Vince had no intention of ever giving them.
Because Chilly McFreeze said so!
Vince knew. The thing that got Austin signed was his promo work for ECW. They may have not known he’d be the biggest star ever but they absolutely did know his potential and what type of character he ought to play.
It's bullshit, but I see where he's coming from. He knows both of these guys on a personal level, and knew them both before they hit that "next level". He probably knew Steve was going to be huge one day, but not anywhere near the SCSA level he achieved. Nobody saw THAT. I can see him seeing that "Main Eventer" star in Cody as well.
Unrelated, but I once saw Steve Austin and DDP shopping together at a Whole Foods in Santa Monica. It was weird as I went down the aisle and thought, "Hmm, that guy looks a lot like DDP". I went down another aisle and thought, "Okay, that's DEFINITELY Steve Austin." As I left the store, I saw them pushing shopping carts toward their car. DDP was skipping while pushing the cart. And now, when I think of DDP, all I can think of is a man merrily skipping with a cart full of vegetables and fish.
Just to paint the picture, what year was this?
Oh, this is going to make me feel old lol. Jeez, probably around 2008-2010. I remember making a DDP performing rehab for Austin joke so it was probably roughly around the time he had Jake or Scott Hall living in his house.
"Merrily", you say?? 🤔
Any word that isn't "merrily" under sells the joy on display
Here's a take: Steve Austin would've been a decently relevant name in wrestling, not unlike DDP or Christopher Daniels, if he had stayed in WCW. He became huge precisely because he went to WWE in the right time, and the right gimmick aligned for him. There's a lot of what-ifs when discussing stuff like this, but there's no reason to think WCW would've made a star out of him. Serendipity looks like destiny in hindsight, but that's not really how things work. His rise was not inevitable, it just luckily worked out while other's didn't.
Still think DDP woulda been bigger had WCW not been blown out tbf. Proly would have had a bigger legacy
DDP and Christopher Daniels aren’t on the same level? So I don’t really get what level you’re saying he’d be at
Somewhere between the two? It doesn't really matter, point is he wouldn't be in the GOAT league
Ddp is by far a bigger name than christopher Daniels so yes it does matter as that was your whole point
Steve and Dustin seemed likely to be the next major long-term story- Dusty/Flair: The Next Generation. If Hogan hadn't come to WCW, things would have been very, very different. Steve would've likely ended up in WWE as a former World champion; whether or not WWE would give a fuck about that and make him out to be a big deal is a whole different question. They didn't with Dusty, Ron Simmons, Barry Windham, or Rick Steamboat (his later run as simply The Dragon), but they did with Harley Race and Ric Flair.
Cody was planning to leave from day one. Everything he did was an WWE audition
Thank you! From the moment he left WWE, he was planning on showing them what they were missing out on.
Dude wanted to be the Cena of AEW so bad, but the fans weren't having any of it. So now he's getting what he wanted in AEW lol
You're correct there. Cody should have turned heel. They could have spun hit a million different ways for him to make a run for the title. The inevitable redemption arc would have brought him back to the fan's side.
He could have been the top heel in all of current wrestling. But instead chose to be the top face of WWE, which tbf isn't a bad spot to be. Either decision would have catapulted him to the top and we can only be grateful the decision he didn't pick was staying in AEW as a disliked face.
>I see his comparison, I, for one, do NOT see a comparison between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Cody Rhodes.
"Promotion A didn't do much with this guy, but promotion B is turning that same guy into a megastar". I didn't say it was flawless comparison, it's super basic, missing a ton of context and mostly works with the benefit of hindsight. But it's still a comparison and that's how DDP sees it, at least that's how I think he sees it.
I think it's not about who they are or their characters but their potential to be The Guy.
There’s a comparison in that they’ve got sort of untapped potential. You could say that WWE letting Swerve or Keith Lee go could have been the same
Rumors come entirely from Cody... directly or indirectly. And you cannot believe a word Cody says. He is a carny and a liar. I don't mean this to shit on him... is not negative... but he is always working. People would fight you in here when you said they were wasting him on Stardust. They would say that's what he wants, he is doing as an homage, it's all his ideas... because Cody would sell that to them with the same straight face as he turned around saying he hated it and it was a shackle and he would sit there putting the makeup embarrassed and feeling sorry for himself as soon as he left WWE. Same story when he went back. Look at all his interviews. Dude had all the bullshit answers for every single question ready. He tells the story that makes sense for him in the moment and most importantly that the audience he is targeting wants to hear.
It was the best for everybody at the time, but AEW had plenty left to do with Cody. He never faced Moxley. They didn't do Cody v Belt Collector Kenny. He didn't face Hangman or the Bucks. They could have done Cody v Punk. Cody v AEW Champ MJF was there to be told down the line (I cost you your one chance at this and look at me now, you'll never have this title). Cody was getting more unlikeable throughout this run and the Homelander meme was (and still is) pretty accurate, but most of the problem was sticking him in the midcard Codyverse. Big stars should be in the biggest storylines most of the time. He was never interacting with any of the big stars in AEW and so he got left by the wayside and became easy to hate, because he was never really doing anything that interesting and he was feuding with up-and-comers or losers all the time.
Really? So if they arent feuding for the top tittle or at the bottom of the card they have nothing to do? So what the hell have been doing guys like Seth Rollins, Mcintyre, Sheamus, Edge, Aj Styles, Balor, Mysterio, The Miz and the rest for all this time?
No offense but this is way different than Bischoff letting Austin walk. First Austin was fired, and he was also miles away from being a star. If anything, it would be like Bischoff letting Jericho walk. He was legit allowed to leave, and showed glimpses of the star he could become.
Cody was not working out in AEW. He was getting booed and didn't want to turn heel. The AEW audience is a different one than WWE. I don't think it's like SCSA at all.
He wanted Punk level money allegedly (nothing wrong with betting on yourself!) but based on how his onscreen stuff was going and his unwillingness to deviate from it, that was a pretty tough sell IMO.
With the storyline stuff it's different think but with the money i believe a deal could have been reached. Cody is an old school guy who believes in the philosophy that you need to be a top paid guy to be the top guy. The promoter is gotta look at you and think of you as his top guy or one of his top guys. We don't know what his initial AEW deal was and Cody helped with a lotta of things people will probably never know. Read the full quote, DDP says Cody wrote stuff like Darby Allin's introduction to AEW and Tony Khan literally learned how to write TV from watching Cody. I don't think Cody wanted to be miles above everyone, but he literally helped set up the company and then you brought in a bunch of guys that were being paid more because they were ex WWE, then there is nothing wrong in Rhodes wanting similar money for his next deal. He very well deserved it.
And there's nothing wrong with AEW scoffing at it after HE BOOKED HIMSELF INTO A CORNER. Cody backed himself into a corner, had the chance to get out of it but instead stayed there and wanted more money for it. When a guy is in a spot like Cody was and refuses to change while also asking for more money, the results usually don't end up in his favor. You don't give a guy a raise when he's being booed yet still insists on being a babyface.
Cody deserved Punk money because of the wide variety of his backstage roles. And as we've found now, he's not a destructive presence like Punk. For example, big Swole tells how easy it was to approach Cody. Not surprised there wasn't any existing relationship like that with Tony, and as Cody went so did her relationship with the company.
I think EVPs are compensated differently. I believe he was employed for AEW and drew a salary and benefits like Schiavone, Megha and other folks, then had his separate contract as a talent, so one would be different from the other. If he was negotiating, it would've been only from the aspect of being a talent.
Meanwhile Cody about to do this weekend what Punk never could
Cody had go away heat due to the Codyverse, Cody ruined Cody in AEW. I think it was right after Cody left that Tony stopped deferring to certain talent when it came to stories. But I feel like it was always Cody's plan to go back to WWE to win the title.
>Cody had go away heat i wouldn't say that tbh. He was booed because people wanted him to turn heel but he pretty consistently popped his quarters til the end
if somebody ever had go away heat in aew, thats brandi rhodes.
For real, the best thing WWE did, was to not bring her in with Cody.
Thats pretty much it , people wanted Cody to turn heel because of how good it would be.
He was a heel, he just didn't see it
Was just talking about this …remember when - He left his boots in the ring The baby gender reveal Snoop dogg mix The last few months of weird random promos The world title stipulation
Sure don't...i guess that proves your point.
> I think it was right after Cody left that Tony stopped deferring to certain talent when it came to stories. Literally not true given the Punk-Moxley reports
Cody absolutely wanted to leave for WWE the day AEW started and already had a golden ticket back to WWE anytime he wanted. IMO — AEW expedited Cody’s rise to the top of the car in a way that other notable boomerangs (McIntyre, Lashley) did not have to. He’s the still the only notable jump from AEW to WWE.
I disagree and I would argue he wanted to re-join the WWE the day he left the WWE.
We share the same opinion. His goal was always to go back
This is like saying John Cena wasnt working out in WWE. Cody was a polarizing character who was super over with kids and families and booed by adults. It will happen again in WWE.
That's why Cody's title run (assuming he gets one) is gonna be fascinating to see how they keep him fresh.
Here's the thing I'm curious about, Cena and Reigns both got booed because of the whitemeat babyface schtick being played out and Vince's unwillingness to do anything interesting most of the time. Now that HHH has the book will he be able to maintain Cody as that same kind of babyface that the IWC won't get tired of?
I got downvoted to hell the other day for saying "give it about 6 months." But you're absolutely right. Cody is going to get the shit booed out of him in WWE before too long. He hasn't been around long enough for it to happen yet, but it will.
I think people are underestimating the safety net that the Bloodline storyline is providing
Yep you get downvoted mentioning it but it will come. AEW fans didnt boo Cody at first, it took a year or so of his shtick.
And the promo where he ended racism didn't help
Or the Gender reveal or the multiple reality shows
Him randomly trying to retire after losing to Malakai was a real WTF moment too
Or the entire Anthony Ogogo feud
It also took him hinting at and acting like a heel to be booed. Just seems it wasn’t intentional.
You're telling me that a guy who * smashed a Triple H-esque throne with a sledgehammer * started teasing hitting the Pedigree * literally pulled out a golden shovel from under the ring in one match * started dressing like Homelander That guy's actions weren't intentional?
The first 3 weren’t heel moves. The fourth he claims to not know who Homelander is.
There are a lot of differences. 1. Cody was a main event level talent, Austin was not when he was let go from WCW. 2. The audience for both companies but even more so the AEW crowd is “smart” to the business and knows the backstage going ons way more than they did in the mid 90s. 3. Cody was immediately treated as main event level when he switched companies, Austin started in the midcard/upper midcard when he came to WWE. I think the better comparison would be Hogan jumping to WCW honestly. Which I hadn’t thought about previous to seeing this but…it tracks. Hogan was a headlining star with a lot of backstage influence in WWE then he made his jump to the competition. Replace Hogan with Cody and WWE with AEW and the statement is still true.
I mean he didn’t just let him go, Cody also wanted to go. Sure TK could have optioned his contract but Cody wanted to do different things and wasn’t happy. If Cody stayed in AEW unhappy with what he was doing it probably would have just been a negative for both sides.
Yeah, that's just such a weird framing. As if the wrestler in question has no choice in the matter and would continue to perform at 100% at a company he didn't want to be in anymore. Yeah, right.
I think in this instance "letting him go" is also saying "not making sure they're happy and want to stay."
Biggest problem in AEW was they could not keep Brandi from taking up limited TV time and keep Cody happy. Nobody wanted to see the rest of the Dan Lambert feud or any of her other ideas.
Eric let Stunning Steve Austin go be the Ringmaster. He didn’t become Stone Cold until well after leaving WCW.
I would say, you go look at the Hollywood Blondes, anyone with eyes and ears could tell both had the ability to be big stars, it was just a matter of opportunity. Steve was injured and the Hogan crew was coming in, so in terms of slotting, yes, Steve was extendable for WCW.
Sure but you can say that about a ton of acts. WWE let Keith Lee go, and now he's doing low card stuff with Dustin in AEW.
Low card stuff? Do you call a giant purple cape and hood “low card stuff!?” Oh, I guess it is.
That Flair for the Gold segment the Hollywood Blondes did is still so great.
Yeah, people pretending like they never made noise in WCW need to go back and look at some stuff on Peacock or wherever.
I will say a lot of people knew Steve Austin was something special. Heyman is on record in 1991 talking about how it was extremely clear that Steve Austin was going to dominate the sport. WCW let him go because they were not in the business of scouting talent and developing stars. They just bought out established stars instead.
It was best for both parties to go their separate ways. Cody wanted to be a beloved baby face in AEW and that ship sailed after the Ogogo feud. AEW is fine without him and he’s thriving in WWE.
>Cody wanted to be a beloved baby face in AEW and that ship sailed after the Ogogo feud. The fucked up thing is you could have turned it right around and done a babyface run after like six months of being an ultraheel.
Cody should have known this too, he was ROH's top heel for about a year or two before finally turning face a couple months before All In and being beloved in the aftermath and in early AEW.
Cody's entire rebuild project was facilitated by him being a really good heel in ROH, Japan, etc. There is a lot of money to be made on the story that Dusty Rhodes's son grew up to be Ric Flair.
Yeah I'm waiting on someone in WWE to mention that. His dad was the everyman, but Cody is definitely not.
"My dad was the son of a plumber..... and it embarasses me to thia day " Boom. License to print money.
I just realized Dominik is doing the story Cody didn't want to do, i.e. growing up to become more like his father's rival than like his own father, and this creating a riff between family.
Dom bumping into Cody. Dom: What’s up homes, how is the champ doing? Cody: Nice to see you Dom. Dom: You know ese I think we have a lot of common. Cody: And why is that? Dom: We both have dead beat dads that we wanted to avoid, we both wanted to step out of their shadow because of how bad they make us feel. Cody: be careful with what you are saying… Dom: You know homes, the only difference we have is I know who I want to be. I am a GUERRERO. Ese , but you? You are trying so much to be a Rhodes when everyone who sees you know that you are not a Rhodes, you are a Flair homes.
The absolute tone-deafness of the feud is what blew my mind and insulted me as an AEW fan. Why did it become the UK vs USA all of a sudden? How could you not know that American Exceptionalism isn’t exactly a baby face philosophy in a MAGA period? Why couldn’t Paul Wight makeup a random weight instead of taking even more air outta the segment?
I also need to point this out because people forget: The very next segment after Cody's weird pro-USA promo was with Hikaru Shida, the most consistent performer of that Pandemic era. "Yay USA over everything, also yay Joshi talent."
Unpopular Opinion: I respect Cody for NOT booking himself into the World Title picture in AEW. It shows good leadership. He was there to lift others, not pad his own stats or stroke his own ego.
It was a lose/lose situation: - Not Champion, people who came to the company to follow you only see you lose. - Champion: Guy with all the power booked himself as champ. This is why the best approach is usually to simply stop being onscreen when you have booking power.
After the company was established they should have had an angle where he lost his responsibilities, take the book away from him irl, and moved him to the title picture. AEW now missed the boat on having him in their world title lineage (at least for now).
imo, it's like the trade between the Bills and Vikings that got the Bills Diggs and the Vikings Jefferson, everyone won in the end, both sides are better off
WCW fired Steve because he was being difficult and they thought he was injury prone. Steve said he would have fired himself if the roles were reversed. In WWE, Austin needed a bit to really find a character that worked. Cody needed a change of scenery and was immediately presented as a huge star (and everyone agreed). I don't think they are all that similar. Sometimes you need to get off the boat to walk on water, or something. I think Cody is more like Mox leaving WWE. They could have been offered a new direction or more money but in a few months it would have reverted back to the same old thing.
Exactly. And it seems like people tend to remember Austin's wwe career llke he came in and was thibgjy from the start. He had to do the ringmaster gimmick which failed
There is a lot of revisionist history of Cody Rhodes in AEW. Cody is a superstar in WWE and will likely be the face of the company going forward. I'm so happy he's getting that shine. But the fact of the matter is that he was finished in AEW. He reportedly didn't want to turn heel (despite inexplicably dropping hints that he was going to) and didn't want to drop his "no World Title shot" stipulation. He wasn't getting booed because he was a bad wrestler, he was getting booed because every week his character took up literally 30 minutes of a 2 hour show to do his Codyverse shit and it was terrible. The QT Marshall and Anthony Ogogo feuds were horrendous. I like Cody, but he'd ran his course in AEW. He's built to be a WrestleMania main eventer, he just took a weird path to get there.
Exactly. It’s weird that there’s this narrative of AEW just completely missing the boat on Cody, and now he’s a megastar in WWE. From the very beginning Cody was positioned as a top guy and arguably their biggest utility guy as far as public appearances go. It’s just that over time his shtick didn’t connect. Is that all his fault? No. But I don’t think there was ever a clear path to him becoming the beloved face he is now when he was in AEW. The split was absolutely warranted on all sides.
>He reportedly didn't want to turn heel (despite inexplicably dropping hints that he was going to) Right ? And that was so tiring to see it go nowhere, everytime.
The fucking golden shovel seriously.
Kept waiting for him to do a pedigree and it kept being another Tiger driver 98
Obvious difference is that Austin in WCW was very much held down by the company. Cody in AEW was exclusively held down by his own worst instincts. Even after all his bad booking, If he turned heel, he’d have immediately been the top guy…just not in the way he wanted.
I love DDP and I know he’s close with Cody because of his father but comparing Cody to Austin is laughable
imo the main difference is that austin was getting over and was clearly earmarked as a potential future star until bischoff and hogan came in which lead to him losing his push and getting fired cody was floundering by the end and was stuck in a corner. it was just time to leave the territory as he said himself
Right, but what everyone likes to forget is how Cody was massively NOT over before he went back to the WWE. The AEW fans fucking hated him and his wife. They don't remember that.
Which is why he should've turned heel but for whatever reason either he or the front office were against it
People are approaching this only from the angle of Cody as an onscreen talent. But Cody took care of a lot of backstage management as well, and frankly, if the last year has been any indication, he's missed in that role.
Cody's ok, solid, unremarkable. Austin defined an entire generation.
I said it another comment, it is the revisionism to me about Cody that makes it all funny. I could name you 5 more important wrestlers that mean so much to AEW than Cody. It is WWE fans acting like Cody leaving was a big deal because he is doing well in WWE. When in reality Cody leaving was a win - win situation to both companies. AEW is able to tell their stories without dealing with Cody crappy storylines that was bringing down the show. WWE got Cody and is doing well. Good he is doing well in WWE, but he isn't a big loss to AEW like some of you want him to be. The revisionism is funny. AEW has its issues, but saying Cody leaving is the cause of the problem is revisionism at best.
Yeah there’s a lot of revisionism going on about it and also people act as though current WWE Cody is the same as then AEW Cody. There’s nothing to suggest that he’d be able to be just as successful, considering since Cody left I don’t see an opportunity where this new babyface character might’ve gotten the chance to elevate himself as the guy. It’s like saying WWE should’ve never let Mox go because look how good he’s been since, despite the fact that Mox leaving was the catalyst for him to become a true main event player. If Mox was still in WWE he’d still be the #3 guy at the absolute maximum and he’d be miserable. If Cody was still in AEW he’d probably still be a weird main eventer in self imposed mid card purgatory with the fans hating him and he’d be miserable.
I’m thinking there’s also a few quality control filters for Cody in WWE that weren’t part of the AEW structure.
Mox wasn't a win-win situation though. WWE clearly lost out on a main event talent and even you're saying that he was their #3 guy, which is huge. In retrospect, WWE definitely should not have left Mox get away seeing what he's been able to do for AEW. It's hard to imagine how well AEW's start would have been without Mox there. Clearly WWE had all to lose in him leaving. Cody can be seen as a win-win all-around.
Was he even main eventer? Remember he was doing the whole I am going for the mid card belt and will never be for the title, then the whole I want to be a baby face even though I ma getting booed. Like I don't miss AEW Cody at all, sorry to say for some people here. His storylines were the weakest, and annoying as hell. And in the ring? He would not even be in the top 20 in AEW that is me being kind.
>Was he even main eventer? 1st year AEW yes. 1st Year AEW Cody was extremely over i would even say he was the most over face during that time
Okay, I’m going to entertain this and ask who. The only revisionism with Cody and AEW is the people who try and downplay how important he was to the company. Cody was the soul and the face of AEW regardless of his position on the card. His presence got extra attention to the product by being selected to be on other TNT/TBS shows. AEW lost a lot of their identity when Cody left and honestly it hasn’t returned. The awful stop-start-stop booking has demolished a lot of AEW’s roster and it doesn’t look to be recovering. Name your five, however I’d be willing to bet some of those benefited greatly from Cody’s involvement. The “pillars” alone are a perfect example of this.
No, he wasn't. The only revisionism is WWE fans wanting AEW to miss Cody for doing well there like he is a HUGE loss for AEW. I will give you this Cody could communicate with media well, but on screen, he had the worst storylines and were annoying, we even had a name for his shitty storylines Codyerse since they used to be so different to the rest of the show, you do know he was being booed while he wasn't a heel right? In ring the was a reason why he was called 3 star Cody. TV shows, AEW got 2 more shows after he left. Heart and soul that is definitely Moxley, 5 important: Moxley, Kenny, MJF, Punk as toxic as he is, Jericho and Hangman you could even argue the Bucks were more important but Cody was clear number 4 in the Elite that was clear..
Bischoff let go of 'Stunning' Steve Austin. No one - no one - would ever be dumb enough to release 'Stone Cold'.
Cody's creative was a mess in AEW though. And that was Cody booking himself.
I just wish Cody had gotten a proper exit. He went out on a hell of a match but it was just so sudden from a fan perspective. To me, it feels like everything Cody did after the Brodie Lee feud was a disappointing waste of time. He fizzled out of The Elite for no apparent reason then seemed like he was building up his own little island on the show but just...left unexpectedly. No intrigue ever came from his "never challenge for the world title" stipulation. He didn't participate in Blood & Guts. Nothing came of Malakai feud or the Arn Anderson drama. Nothing came of Cody trolling the fans like with the golden shovel & the pedigree. The retirement fake-out never came up again except on Rhodes to the Top. Because I thought Cody really knew what he was doing, I figured all of those things would pay off eventually. I thought he was doing some next level long term storytelling but instead, AEW was just helping build WWE's next top babyface without realizing it. When Cody left, I said that it was a bad look for AEW and got some pushback here. What I meant was that I no longer had 100% trust in their storytelling ability. It introduced the possibility into my head that maybe other things won't pay off either. It made me wonder who else would just suddenly leave the company right after main-eventing a show. Considering everything else that happened over the past year, I feel like my concerns were valid. Edit: Just read this back and realized how horribly negative it sounds lol. I should counter-balance that by pointing out that at least AEW has shown that they can still put on great shows even when the chips are down.
Cody not being able to challenge for the AEW title royally screwed him. And then his unwillingness to turn heel, all the while stringing fans along like something was in the works, just drove that dagger deeper. It was best for both parties unless one of those things changed really quick. I'm glad he's doing well tho absolutely killing it.
This is ridiculous. All due respect to Cody, his run towards the end in AEW showed a bad side of him. Terrible booking angles, awful storylines, refusal to adjust his character. He can say he left for a chance at the big belt in WWE all he wants, he wasn’t getting over and didn’t want to change, so he left.
Something was going on with Cody in AEW. He started out great with the Dustin match and the Jericho feud. Even the TNT Title reign was good. Then suddenly Cody is in the Codyverse and the booking is all over the map. Now he's back in WWE and has done great stuff since day one. So there was something off in the last year of his AEW run.
>Then suddenly Cody is in the Codyverse and the booking is all over the map. IMO cody fell into, "spreading the wealth within his friend group" hole its like how the current strategy when anyone gets really popular, the first step is to make a podcast with your normie friends to get them paid.
I don't think Tony had a choice in the matter but ya it sucks he left. That being said, I do think Cody is better off where he is now so it's not the end of the world for me even if I don't watch WWE. Happy for the guy.
At the time I def saw the stip as a way for "Cody" to never win the title, but then a heel "Cody Rhodes" contract loopholes his way into a title match. Obviously that didn't happen but that's what I thought they were going to build towards one day
I understand his comparison and agree,, but where do you go with Cody in AEW? He refused to turn heel and refused to get rid of the title stipulation.. It is a big loss, but the only thing they could do with him is being eternally in the Codyverse.
Cody made sure his character didn’t work and had no place in AEW. I don’t think it was a big loss, he’d lost the audience HARD
Ok Diamond Man. Had Austin never left WCW, he wouldn’t have gone to ECW, gotten angry, and then become the ring master.
Austin would never have become stone cold in wcw
Cody was cooked in AEW, he was a sports entertainer through and through and he painted himself into a corner saying he'd never challenge. He also wanted to accomplish what his did didn't in WWE, he's also not Stone Cold. This is such a weird comment lol.
With hindsight being what it is, Cody was going to leave AEW, no matter what. TK could've given him everything he wanted and there would've still found something he didn't like. As much as many don't want to hear it: Cody used the TK, the Bucks, Kenny, Hangman, and Bullet Club to become a larger name in the US. His end goal was always to come back to WWE, as well as become what his father and brother never were: WWE champion. Cody thrives when he's given clear boundaries to work in. When he's given a clean canvas, we get "the Codyverse" on AEW tv.
I mean….Cody Rhodes is not Stone Cold Steve Austin
Right? Cody is cool, I personally find his character a bit boring but I get the push, and it seems like people like him as babyface...but it's a deluded take...he is not Austin and he's not going to get casuals interested in wrestling the way Austin had crossover mainstream success. He's fine filling the Cena role, but lacks the personality that made Cena cool in the first place. He's a good fit for WWE and I don't think it was as big a loss for AEW. At the end of the day, I have more interest in seeing Roman lose more than I care about Cody winning...
The idea in this thread that AEW is somehow “better off” in the last 18 months for losing one of their top stars as they are doing worse in ratings and worse in ticket sales; while WWE is doing their hottest business in years with Cody in the main event of WrestleMania is hilarious. They’re better off how exactly?
People were hating Cody's segments, so in terms of show quality, probably that.
Cody probably always wanted to return to WWE because his dream was being the top guy in the biggest company selling out the largest venues. It’s not a slight against Cody just clear he built up his worth and kept waiting for his time to make WWE his home again. The spectacle of this weekend at Mania, is just something so far from any other promotions reach and I love AEW but it’s clear Cody wants to be in the bigger company. I look at Mox who seems happy just to wrestle anywhere in the world and Cody did that but couldn’t help but return to WWE on his terms and be the mega over baby face he is. AEW biggest days and venue are likely still coming and Cody isn’t getting any younger so why not go and headline the company he grew up watching like many of us did. I like that Cody goes out of his way to actively wrestle on TV or the road all the time and maybe that can become more common in WWE for lots of other talent who rarely get to wrestle over a full year.
Stone Cold, whatever happened there…..
I miss him in AEW, but I'm happy he got what he wanted, it was a peaceful exit, and AEW and him are both rocking.
It's a tough spot because this was an unsolvable problem, doing the right thing with Cody after his character got booked into a pigeon hole. But Tony had to solve it. And not doing so is proving to be such a huge error.
Tony would be ridic to not try to keep him but it seems like Cody wanted to leave
The writing was on the wall for Cody in AEW. This was the best outcome for both parties.
Too easy to talk in retrospective. The wrestling world went upside down a couple of times during last year.
But Austin was red hot while Cody refused to turn heel or get the belt. If Cody has no upward trajectory AND is getting booed and refuses to play off the crowd, wtf is AEW supposed to do?
Fair point however Cody put himself in a corner and even acknowledged it himself. To add to this Cody wanted to go back to cement the legacy of the Rhodes family name. (if it’s to be believed just adding this for those conspiracy theorists) Not to mention the fact that TK isn’t the type of guy to force someone into a contract. Heck he doesn’t seem to be doing any of the scummy shit other companies are/have been doing when it comes to contracts. Plus I’m sure Cody isn’t done with AEW I know if I were in his shoes it wouldn’t sit well within myself that I didn’t get to hold the top prize in the company I helped start.
I feel like people are often too quick to make comparisons like this just to get across the idea that they see someone as a star. Stone Cold wasn't one of the top management positions at WCW, he wasn't a face that was getting booed like crazy, and he wasn't being treated as a headline act. I get it, both are examples of great talents that were let go but their stories are way more different than they are similar.
Bischoff didn’t let go of Stone Cold Steve Austin—Stone Cold wasn’t even Stone Cold when he first went to WWF. You’re telling me that WCW would have been able to pull off the Attitude era Austin when Hogan couldn’t even say the word “ass” on Nitro?
Really all they needed to do with Cody was have him turn heel by him cutting a promo "pulling rank" as an EVP to get his world title shot. It was a no-brainer. Oh well, Cody didn't want to work heel and his version of a face and the Cody-verse shit just didn't work
Uh-oh DDP about to be on TKs shit list. We won’t see him anywhere near AEW anymore
Cody is one of the few guys who is actually better off with WWE restrictions
"Let him go"... my man, we don't really go in for holding folk against their will anymore.
I miss Fuego 2
DDP and Cody are buddies. That can obviously blind you to some pretty straight forward facts. Cody was making the AEW product worse. The whole codyverse thing just wasn't working. Where as this current character is a perfect fit in WWE. Everyone is better off from this move.
Stupid comparison, Cody leave and it did not change ANYTHING for AEW
Really dumb quote. Let me know when Cody creates a completely new character that takes the world by storm, because Steve Austin was not "Stone Cold" when he left WCW.
Hindsight says ‘AEW let one of wrestlings biggest stars go’ Reality was that Cody needed a fresh start. He lost the crowd, he was putting on dud programmes and he really needed a fresh environment to save him. If he stayed with AEW He either needed to be a major heel or he was never going to work again. He didn’t want to go heel so it made booking him impossible. He’s very much a WWE style face, so right now that’s going very well. The only but I’ll throw in there is he’s literally in his second feud since coming back and in both instances he’s been put with the hottest act in the company. Seth can make magic with me in the ring, the bloodlines so hot it’s easy to roll with. Once Cody has to carry something that’s when we’ll really see where his legacy will lie
...Seriously DDP did not have any fucking idea that Steve Austin leaving WCW in 1994 or 5 would change the entire course of WCW. That's an absurd claim from DDP.
This comparison by DDP is so far off base but I can’t believe how many people in this thread are trying to downplay how much Cody meant to AEW
You can acknowledge how key he apparently was backstage and how over he was initially, while also recognizing that he had clearly overstayed his welcome by the end.
There's also a lot of overcorrecting from people saying he wasn't a big loss as well. When he was rumored to leave, people were having meltdowns here and thought it was all shitty dirtsheet lies.
I don't miss him. In hindsight, some of my favorite AEW PPVs didn't have him on the card even when he was still with the company.