Cody Rhodes Says The Elite “Were The Enemy” In NJPW Before Their Exit
Cody Rhodes has shared an interesting story about playing Shane McMahon’s theme song regularly prior to AEW launching.
Things are good when you’re the “American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes in 2023. Cody is getting ready for the biggest match of his life in two months when he challenges Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania 39 on April 1st and April 2nd. Cody earned that title shot after winning the WWE Royal Rumble last Saturday.
The first ten years of Cody’s career were spent in WWE until his departure in 2016. After working for various other wrestling promotions, Cody promoted a very successful independent wrestling show called “All In” in September 2018 along with The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) and Kenny Omega aka The Elite.
In early 2019, Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks were part of the official announcement of All Elite Wrestling, which is owned by Tony Khan. Cody, The Young Bucks and Omega (who would join AEW a few months later when he was a free agent) were all named as Executive Vice Presidents in AEW as well.
During an appearance on the Impaulsive podcast with Logan Paul, Cody Rhodes told a story about how just before the announcement of AEW, he was in Japan and would play Shane McMahon’s “Here Comes The Money” theme song ahead of AEW’s launch because it meant a huge payday for the EVPs of the company. Cody also said The Elite “were the enemy” in the group at the 2019 edition of Wrestle Kingdom because NJPW people knew The Elite were leaving the company.
“It’s not really a Shane McMahon story, but the excursion I went on. When I plugged back in, not only just WWE, but when we were starting the other promotion [AEW], the money was large. I had been away from the large money for a while. I was in Tokyo Dome hotel getting ready to do this big show, Wrestle Kingdom for New Japan. I knew in a few weeks, it was going to go down.
“We were going to announce it to the world and we were going to be on an actual real network. This is happening. Shane’s music is ‘Here Comes The Money.’ Every time I get on the elevator with other guys in the group with me, I would play that music. There were all these other wrestlers who would [turns his head]. We were the enemy.
“We were leaving, they didn’t know why. I just played it to the point where, now I can’t see Shane and not be like, ‘I ruined your song by playing it everywhere.'”
Following his Royal Rumble win, Cody Rhodes defeated Finn Balor on the January 30th edition of Raw.