Cody Rhodes Talks AEW Fans Turning On Him – “I Had Fun With It”
Cody Rhodes opened up about fans turning on him ahead of his AEW exit.
As one of the company’s original EVP’s, Cody Rhodes was instrumental in the formation of All Elite Wrestling. Fans were shocked, then, when he announced in February of 2022 that he and his wife Brandi would be leaving AEW.
While Cody Rhodes was once a firm fan favorite, the AEW audience soured on him by the time he was about to depart. Rhodes regularly threw his weight belt into the crowd, and on one occasion, the audience threw the belt back at him in a show of rejection.
Speaking to Sam Roberts on a new episode of Notsam Wrestling, Rhodes opened up about having fun with the fan reactions before discussing the backstage chaos that was beginning to take hold in the company.
“I had fun with it, I did, even when the belt came back in the Target Center, it was perfect. Dax (Harwood) and those guys knew what to do, we leaned into it. I would always tell QT (Marshall) or Tony (Khan) or whoever was there, ‘I’m leaning in.’
“I don’t know if anyone knew what that meant. I think that’s the story about everything at the end, ‘I don’t know if there’s a plan for this. This is chaos.’ Chaos, we did big numbers, one of the last Saturday specials did a killer number and we were doing great business, but chaos, you have to get the reigns on it at some point. Where is this going?”
Continuing, Cody Rhodes admitted that some of his final promo in the company came from a selfish place of wanting to remind crowds that he played a big part in helping start the revolution that led to AEW.
“The ‘exit interview,’ selfishly, I wanted fans to know, ‘I love you guys so much, and I did all this, and if you have forgotten about it, I don’t think that’s cool.’ It’s the nature of it. Me, Matt (Jackson), and Nick (Jackson) talk about that all the time. It’s like people don’t remember. I’m of the fault that when I’m 80 years old, ‘He did do all this.’
“It’s so odd because I was so mad at different journalists in how they discredited my dad, took ideas and took things away from him, and later he passed away, ‘He did all of this.’ As mad as I was, I felt in that moment, ‘it’s happening all over again and happening to me.’ There are too many egos in wrestling, including my own. I can’t take credit for the revolution, there were other people. Was I a big part of it? Sure.”
h/t Fightful