Cody Rhodes Slams “Disinformation Campaign” Over AEW Exit
Cody Rhodes stunned the world in early 2022 when he and his wife Brandi announced their AEW departures causing a storm of rumors and speculation over just what had gone wrong.
Cody Rhodes was at the forefront, along with The Young Bucks, of forming AEW after the three stars put their money where their mouth was and funded the wildly successful All In show in September 2018. Just a few short months later AEW was announced, with Rhodes, The Bucks, and Kenny Omega named as Executive Vice Presidents of Tony Khan’s company.
That’s why AEW fans were floored in February 2022 when Cody Rhodes, Brandi Rhodes, and Tony Khan simultaneously released statements confirming that the pair had now left AEW. Within a few weeks, The American Nightmare’s future became clear when he returned to WWE to defeat Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 38.
Speaking in a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Cody Rhodes hit out at some of the “disinformation” making the rounds in the wake of his AEW exit and even mentions wrestling journalist Wade Keller by name as the person behind that campaign:
“But you mentioned taking pride in the executive element. So you were there when I was still running those meetings, I really loved it. But from an ego standpoint, from an optics standpoint, that was really cool. But I also really loved leading, and I just maybe wasn’t ready to fully lead at that point.
“And it didn’t rub everyone the right way, why is he running the production meeting? Why is this and that and then you know, your vision, Kenny’s vision, Matt and Nick’s vision, everyone’s visions, that one thing. But you know, Tony has a vision and this is his money, and then let’s see how that plays out. But that was a good time.
“I’m glad you had a good experience because when we left there was this whole like disinformation campaign that Wade Keller put out, and I’m not even mad at Wade Keller, no heat with Wade. But I could tell what was going on. Again, you didn’t talk to any real source.
“No, I was an executive, as a member of management. I was happy, wanted to help and took huge pride in us being a professional organisation and, and that shows amongst the roster, the locker room, my kids, the people I didn’t recruit, people I did recruit. Yeah, there was such a fog of misinformation of when I left that. It’s fun to see in the doc itself. You know, that wasn’t the case, it was just time.”
During the conversation, Cody Rhodes also reflected on what he calls his “exit interview” in AEW and reveals he let CM Punk know he’d be referring to him during it.