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Cody Rhodes’ AEW Run Heavily Discussed In WWE Documentary

By John Canton • Published 21st July 2023
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In a new WWE documentary about Cody Rhodes, his past in AEW will not be ignored completely.

A highly-anticipated documentary about one of WWE’s biggest stars will premiere on Monday, July 31st on Peacock. It’s called “Becoming Cody Rhodes” while covering the life and career of the American Nightmare in a way we have never seen before.

On Tuesday night in Atlanta, one day after Cody Rhodes was beaten up by Brock Lesnar on Raw in Atlanta, a premiere took place for the documentary with Cody on hand along with his family, friends, and members of the media that were invited to cover the event. Cody also gave a speech at the documentary premiere as well.

What many fans are wondering is how a WWE-produced documentary airing on Peacock (the home of WWE Network in the US) is going to fairly mention Cody Rhodes starting AEW with a bunch of his friends in 2019.

Cody Rhodes spent three years in AEW which saw him hold the TNT Title three times but he failed to win the AEW World Title due to an early storyline in his run there that prevented him from challenging for the title. In addition to that, Cody was an Executive Vice President that was very close friends with the other EVPs The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) and Kenny Omega.

In early 2022, after three years in AEW, Cody’s contract was up and he decided to go back to WWE – the company where he spent the first ten years of his career and left in 2016. Since returning to WWE at WrestleMania 38, Cody has been one of the biggest stars in the company and one of the top babyfaces as well as merchandise sellers. The ovations from the crowd continue to grow week after week even after losing the WrestleMania 39 main event to Roman Reigns, which was a match that many thought Cody would win. It wasn’t a clean loss, at least.

Regarding the documentary that will air on Peacock, Dave Meltzer wrote more about the premiere in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

“Peacock will be releasing a two-hour Cody Rhodes documentary on 7/31 with Stephen Amell, a good friend of his, doing the narration. The story is about his leaving WWE and following his journey outside WWE, and his return with the story that he returned to chase the title that his father was never able to win, so it’s storyline in that regard.”

“There was a screening of the documentary on 7/18 in Sandy Springs, GA with a Rhodes Q&A. Diamond Dallas Page, Matt Cardona and Chelsea Green, who are friends of his and in the documentary, were there, as were Cody, Brandi, his mother Michelle and his sister. Rhodes did a Q&A after as well.”

As he continued, Meltzer wrote about how there was footage from The Young Bucks’ Being The Elite (BTE) YouTube show that Cody was on many times, but there’s no footage of Cody in AEW in the documentary. Meltzer also commented on AEW’s boss Tony Khan and Cody making a deal when the American Nightmare decided to go back to WWE.

“There was footage from BTE that Matt & Nick Jackson gave permission to use regarding the first All In show and signing contracts with AEW. There was no footage of Rhodes in AEW. We do know that several interviewed talked a lot about AEW but we don’t know how much will survive the editing process. But it would be impossible to tell a true story of Rhodes without it so I presume it will be covered and it will be interesting to see how it is covered.”

“I’m relatively sure Rhodes won’t talk about the actual reasons for leaving since he and Tony Khan made a deal that neither has broken to keep that quiet, but they do talk about his contract being over and his working on a renewal when Bruce Prichard called Rhodes and soon after, Vince flew to Cody’s house in Atlanta to make the deal with him. Rhodes still didn’t commit until early February and the actual departure took place just before Valentine’s Day in 2022.”

The trailer for the Cody Rhodes documentary is below.