Cody Rhodes On All In 2018 – “We Broke Every Rule”
Cody Rhodes reflected on the original All In, detailing odd PayPal transactions and how he feels about no longer owning the event’s name.
Before All Elite Wrestling began to take shape, Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks accepted a bet from Dave Meltzer to sell more than 10,000 tickets to an independent wrestling show. The result was All In, taking place near Chicago, IL on September 1st, 2018 in front of a sold out crowd.
The show featured talent from top promotions across the globe, with stars from ROH, NJPW, NWA, and more as well as multiple legends who paved the way for the modern generation of stars.
Speaking in a new interview with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. on The Dale Jr. Download, Cody Rhodes looked back on the experience five years later, making it clear that despite some help from Ring of Honor, he and The Young Bucks really had to go “all in” to make sure the show came to fruition.
“Here’s what people don’t know, or here is what people suspect. We told everybody, it’s all us, it’s all me, Matt, and Nick.’ We presented it as ‘we’re doing this, we’re breaking all the rules, we’re bringing all the companies together, we’re literally going All In.’
“We did have help from a company, Ring of Honor was the company that helped produce it. People think Ring of Honor footed the whole bill or we footed the whole bill. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
“We, literally, did have to go All In. We were going All In on our name alone in the sense that we had to get over 10,000 people. The comments on social were that we couldn’t put 10,000 in an arena and I, all pre-workout up at the gym, ‘I’ll take that bet.’ Now, we’re stuck. We can’t sell 5,000 tickets. We have to sell 10,000 tickets.”
“A Wonderful Memory” – Cody Rhodes On All In 2018
Continuing, Cody Rhodes went into detail about what was necessary to make the blockbuster event happen and explained how Conrad Thompson came to him with the idea that would eventually become Starrcast.
“We did everything we possibly could, we broke every rule. I never use PayPal, but I laugh when I look back at my PayPal, and all the paydays are still there from these different little things that I had to pay for to get, like Road Warrior Animal to come over to ride his motorcycle.
“My buddy Conrad [Thompson] did a convention because he said, ‘I bet if this sells out, people will piggyback off it, you should let us piggyback. We’ll do a whole convention, and you can steal some legends and assets.’ It was like Woodstock for wrestling. I walked into the hotel and the energy was through the roof. The lobby was filled to the brim with fans. It was mind-blowing.”
Once tickets for All In went on sale, they sold out in minutes, leaving many fans clamoring for tickets on the secondary market. Cody Rhodes continued:
“That day, before any of this had happened, we were riding back from the press conference where I couldn’t get the mic to work — here he is, putting on a show and the mic wasn’t working — we come back from the press conference, there was a fan driving us to the show. We were trying to go on the site to buy tickets, and I’m thinking, ‘If the site is frozen, we’re screwed’ or ‘is it blowing up? Can it crash?’
“It crashed immediately. It was 11,236 in 28 minutes. I said ‘We need this,’ that welcome to the Indies letter. ‘It can be bigger.’ I like to think big. It was all in front of us, and we had to execute and make it happen.
“A wonderful memory. I have trouble with the fact that I no longer own the name to it. I kind of look at it in the sense of, it’s not mine, it’s the fans’. Let them have a good time with it.”
Ahead of AEW All In last month, Will Ospreay revealed why he wasn’t a part of the show in 2018.
h/t Fightful