Cody Rhodes is the current big name in the world of Pro-Wrestling now. Form a mid-carder Cody Rhodes reinvented himself to become the biggest name in the industry. After leaving WWE in 2016, Cody Rhodes become most talked about personality in the sports entertainment industry after he helped in the formation and operation of AEW. So what went wrong with Cody Rhodes and AEW. Once a poster boy of AEW who left them to join WWE again. What this video to know our analysis of how AEW failed Cody Rhodes. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more wrestling insights and analysis!
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00:00 At the Full Gear 2019 pay-per-view, Cody Rhodes was set to face Chris Jericho for the All
00:07 Elite Wrestling World Championship.
00:10 And before the pay-per-view spectacular on the Dynamite TV show, Rhodes announced that
00:16 if he couldn't beat Jericho for the title that night, he would never challenge for the
00:21 AEW World title again.
00:23 The stipulation got everyone thinking that Cody was walking out of that show as the next
00:29 world champion for AEW.
00:31 And this made sense, otherwise why would he have made that stipulation in the first place?
00:37 Such an ultimatum made the match feel very interesting, but almost like a foregone conclusion
00:43 that Cody would be the winner.
00:45 Unfortunately, he lost that match, a compelling performance by both men resulting in him being
00:50 permanently barred from challenging for the top title in AEW.
00:55 So what did the American Nightmare do?
00:58 He left All Elite Wrestling eventually and went back to WWE, where he first broke into
01:03 the business in 2022, in a huge comeback at WrestleMania with the red carpet rolled out
01:09 for him and declared that he was going to chase the WWE Championship.
01:14 Two years later, at WrestleMania 40 in 2024, he finally won the undisputed WWE Universal
01:21 Championship, ending one of the longest world title reigns in Roman Reigns, a historic championship
01:28 reign came to an end, and a historic championship win was what would define Cody's career
01:34 that night.
01:35 It was a monumental moment, not just for Cody Rhodes, but for the entire WWE.
01:40 It was a monumental moment to say the least for Cody Rhodes and all of the WWE.
01:45 It is crucial to acknowledge that this might not have happened if Cody hadn't departed
01:50 AEW to begin with, and he went from being a guy who was somehow self-banned from challenging
01:56 for the AEW World Title, to becoming the WWE Universal Champion in one of the biggest matches
02:02 in recent memory.
02:04 So how did this happen?
02:05 How did Cody Rhodes leaving AEW turn out to be the best decision for him, and also maybe
02:11 one that was very impactful for the entire landscape of professional wrestling?
02:15 Let's get into it.
02:16 Oh, by the way, we have covered a deep dive into Cody's run in AEW before coming to
02:22 WWE, so check that one out on our channel as well.
02:25 Cody's run in AEW was not that bad from the get-go.
02:29 Don't try and change history.
02:31 During the inception of AEW, his booking was great and interesting.
02:35 He was over like Rover, receiving loud reactions from the crowds around the country as AEW
02:42 was becoming a breakout promotion and a real strong alternative to WWE.
02:47 Some might even argue that he was positioned as the face of the company around that time.
02:52 He delivered one of the best matches of his career with his brother Dustin Rhodes at the
02:57 Double or Nothing pay-per-view and was involved in some high-profile feuds.
03:02 He's also one of the company's executive vice presidents during this time, looking
03:06 at other responsibilities and gave chances to other stars like Darby Allin and MJF.
03:11 Many fans felt that it was only a matter of time before he would win the AEW World Championship
03:18 and was in a perfect position as AEW's top hero in 2019 to topple over Chris Jericho,
03:26 who was the first ever AEW Champion and someone who could have ended his reign.
03:32 People felt that guy was Cody.
03:34 Cody looked like a star, worked like a star, he felt like someone who had an edge that
03:39 other people on the roster simply didn't have.
03:42 He could have been the guy.
03:44 He was booked into a feud with Jericho and a championship match between the two was set
03:49 for full gear 2019.
03:52 Before his match with Jericho, as we mentioned earlier, he brought out a stipulation that
03:56 if he couldn't beat Jericho for the world title, he would never challenge for that title
04:01 again in AEW.
04:03 This was probably done to gain attention, add more stakes, make the match itself feel
04:08 consequential.
04:10 This was going to be more than just a championship match on pay per view, but something certainly
04:15 more compelling.
04:17 And with that, many fans envisioned Cody winning the championship.
04:21 And for some reason, AEW's president, Tony Khan, or maybe Cody himself or others close
04:25 to the decision, felt as he had a lot of influence in AEW at the time, that it wasn't the opportune
04:32 time for him to claim that world championship title.
04:35 Shockingly, he lost to Jericho under some very dusty circumstances, for lack of a better
04:41 phrase.
04:42 And per the stipulation, his chance to challenge for the title was gone.
04:46 The action might have been taken to reassure a sense of fairness within AEW, to the fans
04:52 and maybe even to the locker room itself in AEW.
04:55 Given that Cody's role as an executive vice president was still standing, winning a championship
05:00 could have made him out as a politicker, or maybe someone from a bygone era where you
05:06 had a lot of the promoters making themselves or someone close to them a world champion.
05:11 But eventually, it kind of hurt the overall picture of AEW in the long run, as it forced
05:16 Cody, one of their biggest stars, to be maybe just someone always out of the world title
05:21 scene, always at the top of the midcard, never truly in the main event to some degree.
05:28 Cody himself regretted the decision.
05:30 During a Fox Sports out of character interview, the American Nightmare stated that he did
05:34 well as an executive vice president in AEW, and he was particularly involved in the company's
05:38 community outreach programs.
05:40 But the decision to remove himself from the world title contention was a wrong one.
05:45 Cody said, "But maybe it would have been better served for me at the age of 45 than it did
05:51 at the age of, you know, 33 or whatever it was.
05:54 I'm just now entering the prime of my career.
05:57 So to make political decisions, like boxing myself out of winning a world championship,
06:03 those decisions, in hindsight, were not the correct decisions and what I should have been
06:08 doing."
06:09 So what did AEW do to make him currently relevant to what they were doing at the time?
06:14 They gave him the first ever TNT championship, their version, if you will, of the Intercontinental
06:19 title.
06:20 Cody did a great job of establishing the title, making it different and prestigious.
06:25 He defended it against all comers, had incredible matches with the likes of Eddie Kingston,
06:30 Brodie Lee, and Ricky Starks.
06:33 He even dropped the title to Mr. Brodie Lee before winning it back, and he finally put
06:37 over a young Darby Allin at Full Gear 2020 before moving on to something else.
06:43 It was a great run, and it certainly made the championship matter in the greater picture
06:47 of everything AEW.
06:48 And it's safe to say that Cody is the one who made it matter.
06:52 Some have objected to this entire title run, saying that that title, the TNT championship,
06:57 was beneath him.
06:58 This was the guy that was one of the most overstars in the company, though he did have
07:02 his doubters.
07:04 Many fans wanted to see him as a world title contender.
07:08 Instead, they got this secondary title run.
07:11 That was an audience that still was vocal through this entire scenario.
07:15 Now it's not wrong for him to be a main event talent and hold a secondary title, it
07:20 just happens all the time.
07:22 And if that main event talent hasn't won a world title, then goes for a secondary one,
07:27 it seems, you know, just less than.
07:30 Some might even argue that the only option for the American Nightmare to play a prominent
07:34 role in AEW after that stipulation of never fighting for the championship.
07:40 What would that be?
07:41 And whose fault was it?
07:42 AEW kind of booked themselves into a corner, and how is Cody gonna get out of it?
07:47 After losing the TNT championship, Cody was seemingly directionless, so they booked him
07:52 into a feud, a personal grudge, with QT Marshall.
07:56 And you remember that feud?
07:57 Neither did many people.
07:59 There were some strong matches in it, but nothing that ever pushed the needle in the
08:03 greater picture of what the company was doing.
08:04 They even booked him in a match with one of QT Marshall's protégés, Anthony Ogogo,
08:10 at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view in 2021, featuring a weird anti-American storyline.
08:15 It was USA vs. the UK, it was bad, it had that very questionable promo.
08:20 Yeah, it even did an interesting feud with Malakai Black, but that felt like it wasn't
08:25 pushing the needle again.
08:27 Cody couldn't challenge for the world title, but he still could've gotten in the mix with
08:30 other main event names like Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, and maybe even CM Punk
08:36 or Bryan Danielson when they got there.
08:38 But AEW kept him away from those other big names.
08:43 It begs the question, did AEW take Cody Rhodes for granted?
08:46 I mean, there were so many ample opportunities for big matches that had marquee value there.
08:52 He won yet another TNT championship around this time, but fans started to damper on him.
08:59 They started to boo him.
09:00 They started to feel like he was that guy because he was an executive, he was in this
09:03 position that just felt separate from everything else going on in AEW, and that is, booking
09:09 was repetitive.
09:10 Yes, fickle fans turning on something from a fantastic performer.
09:14 We've seen this before in wrestling.
09:16 And this was the best time to maybe turn him into a villain.
09:19 All he had to do was go against the words that he had made in the past and challenge
09:23 for the world title.
09:24 Break a promise, become a villain in the process.
09:27 Cody as a villain could've worked, and his portrayal as a heel could've elevated him,
09:32 but it's all coulda, woulda, shoulda, not gonna challenge for that world title.
09:35 However, AEW never embraced this direction for him.
09:39 You could say this may have been the right direction considering how being a fan favorite
09:44 turned out in his favor in WWE.
09:47 But this was not WWE, this was still AEW, and he had potential to be one of the most
09:53 interesting characters who could push the company to another level.
09:57 As evident from the reactions he was receiving, they were not quiet.
10:01 Fans were still invested in what was going on with Cody, and they wanted to see something
10:04 different.
10:05 In January 2022, Cody lost the TNT Championship to Sammy Guevara in one of the best ladder
10:12 matches that AEW has ever presented.
10:14 It is an absolute banger, seek it out.
10:18 Little did we know it turned out to be the last match for Cody in AEW as his contract
10:24 was about to expire.
10:26 Soon reports emerged that the American Nightmare was heading to the competition, the company
10:31 where he first broke into the business, WWE.
10:34 AEW loyalists were not happy at all with this feeling of betrayal from the guy who started
10:40 their revolution.
10:42 But think about it, what else was there for him to do in AEW?
10:47 He couldn't challenge for the world title, he won the TNT Championship multiple times,
10:52 that did not book him into a main event feud for some reason, and why would he want to
10:56 be there?
10:57 The moment they brought out that stipulation that he couldn't challenge for the top title,
11:02 it put a ceiling on what he could do.
11:05 They missed the ball on Cody, some have even said that Cody may have missed the ball, but
11:10 that's a different debate.
11:11 He's the type of talent you'd ideally envision holding your top spot in the company,
11:17 and the top spot sometimes comes with that top championship.
11:21 After this, it seemed inevitable that Cody's next destination would have to be WWE.
11:26 With an even bigger reputation built on what he had done outside of WWE in AEW on the independent
11:33 circuit, the logical step was to bring this new revitalized Cody, the American nightmare
11:39 that had been made outside of WWE, into the big multi-billion dollar platform that was
11:47 the WWE.
11:49 At WrestleMania 38, on the grandest stage you want to return on, Cody Rhodes got to
11:55 make that anticipated return, unadvertised, but we all knew he was going to be there,
12:02 defeating Seth Rollins in a match that stole the weekend.
12:06 And the next night, on Monday Night Raw, he declared that he was not back in WWE just
12:10 to be a mid-carder, no, he was going for the WWE Championship.
12:14 And from that moment on, fans started to speculate that he would be the guy to end Roman Reigns'
12:21 then very long in the tooth title reign.
12:24 Upon his return, Cody delivered a series of remarkable matches against Seth Rollins.
12:29 Not only did he contend with one of WWE's top stars, he also emerged victorious, something
12:35 that maybe he wasn't doing in those big match situations every time in AEW.
12:40 He won the Royal Rumble in 2023, faced Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 39,
12:46 however WWE didn't let him have the championship that time, and Roman Reigns continued to be
12:51 a villain with his entire family helping him win big matches.
12:55 It wasn't for a good reason, there was a big merger, WWE was being consumed under the
13:00 umbrella of the Endeavor Corporation, there were a lot of other things going on.
13:04 Roman was on the verge of holding the title for a thousand days, people claim that's
13:08 another reason why it didn't happen.
13:10 Also Cody just had a handful of matches under his belt at that point at the top level in
13:15 WWE, but after winning the 2024 Royal Rumble, it was clear that he was winning again, and
13:22 he did.
13:23 He finished the story at WrestleMania 40 in front of a capacity crowd, winning the WWE
13:29 Universal Championship, and one of the biggest payoffs that fans have witnessed on WWE television
13:34 in years.
13:35 All this happened because of a consistent sense of booking, staying with the story throughout
13:41 all the ups and downs, at no point did anyone think that WWE was treating him as an afterthought,
13:48 even when he lost at WrestleMania 39, he was always going to be in the mix, and because
13:53 he was so popular, he turned The Rock into a heel in the process.
13:58 One of the most popular people in the world, yes, one of the biggest stars in the world,
14:03 could not get past Cody.
14:05 He was the guy that people wanted, he was the guy that WWE invested in, and he was the
14:09 guy that paid off so big.
14:11 (Outro)