Cody Rhodes has recently opened up about the ‘negative’ perception of his early AEW involvement after comments from the Young Bucks.
In 2018, The Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes came together to create All In, the event that would lead to the formation of AEW.
The success of the event saw Tony Khan back the initiative, leading to the inaugural AEW Double or Nothing and the start of Dynamite.
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Cody Rhodes addressed the negative perception some had over his involvement in the early days.
Referring to The Dark Knight, in which Batman ends the movie as a pariah following his heroic actions, Rhodes explained:
“To certain fans from the AEW fandom, they need the story to be they didn’t want me, they pushed me [out], he was bad… They need that story, they need me to be the villain. I was always fine with accepting that because of the respect I have for it in the first place.
“How difficult it was to do the original All In, how unbelievable the feeling was to do Double or Nothing. How fortunate we were that Tony wanted to invest in this vision and he had a vision as well. How special Matt and Nick in the BTE era and Kenny and my rivalry in New Japan, especially from a dollars and cents point. That made New Japan more money than anything they ever did and it made Ring of Honor go through the roof at the time.
“So regardless of any petty squabbles, I will always have a love for it.”
He would take particular issue with the way he was portrayed in The Young Bucks’ book Killing the Business, noting:
“I hated that in The Young Bucks’ book they said I was last to the signing. Because that’s a big thing. Some of the AEW defenders who don’t realize they’re turning people off to their product more than they’re turning people on, that’s one of the things that people always cite ‘Oh, he was last, he wasn’t that big a deal to the origin.’ No, this guy here who’s off camera was the first person to ever meet Tony and he met him in a vetting process for all of us.
“So yes, I guess I was the last and yes, I had different thoughts and it’s not incorrect at all what they said [that I was physically the last person to sign]. Yeah, it’s not incorrect but I was just in on it as well as anybody else. That’s a little thing that when I write my book I get to tell [the story].”
Rhodes left AEW in February 2022 along with his wife, Brandi Rhodes, and would return to WWE at WrestleMania 38 in April of that year.
He would later reveal his decision to leave AEW was due to ‘a personal matter‘ going on to say that he has ‘nothing but respect’ for the Young Bucks and Tony Khan.
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