In 2019 Cody Rhodes helped launch a revolution as the unofficial public spokesman for All Elite Wrestling. Of the promotion’s foundational figures, he was the one best suited for the role. The son of the “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, Cody had the looks, wardrobe and WWE polish for the job, comfortable with the kind of slick double talk that the media loved. He had famously bet on himself, leaving a comfortable position as an undercard wrestler in WWE with aspirations of making something more of his life. He wasn’t just talking the talk—he was living it.
Every movement needs a face. He was ours.
It had been years since WWE had faced a viable challenger and Rhodes ended up being a wonderful avatar for the pent up frustration many fans felt as they watched a promotion that looked less and less like the professional wrestling they’d grown up on. Rhodes’ was an eloquent voice, speaking grandiosely of both tradition and a bright future. He walked a fine line between the angry Jim Cornettes of the world, those who wanted something that could never return, and fans wanting to see wrestling finally burst free from the shackles of the Attitude Era and create art that wasn’t grounded in an increasingly dated 90’s aesthetic.
It was a bold and, frankly, ludicrous mission. Many had tried. All had come back from the front line broken and battered by the omnipotent “too big to fail” power that WWE wields.
But, by God, they did it. At Double or Nothing, the new promotion’s first pay-per-view event, Cody picked up a sledge hammer and smashed a throne, metaphorically declaring that what you were watching was untethered from wrestling as WWE presented it.
This thing, whatever it would become, was ours.
While Cody stood tall for AEW, gathering an almost cult-like following of true-believers around him, he was also very careful to never fully burn any bridges.
“What happened to me at the end of my career in WWE is not WWE's fault at all,” he told me in a 2019 profile for Bleacher Report. “Totally mine. It really is. I wasn't ready for the role I thought I was ready for. If you want to be John Cena, you got to do the exact same amount of work he does. And that's a lot of work. I wasn't doing the work that I should have been doing.”
To me, admittedly on the outside, Cody’s excursion into the vast underbelly of independent wrestling and eventually AEW, was never truly about changing wrestling or even about servicing fans. Those were secondary goals, admirably achieved.
No, Cody’s departure and worldwide expedition was about proving WWE wrong, showing Vince McMahon, Triple H (and most importantly himself), that they had missed something, that he had the potential to be more than midcard fodder. Whether he came back to WWE or not, he needed to show everyone he was an elite performer. This was proof of concept for “Cody Rhodes, main eventer.”
And it was a demonstrable success.
While others assumed he was AEW for life, our podcast Illegal Double Team almost immediately pegged him as the wrestler most likely to eventually jump ship to the WWE. Cody’s journey was always about Cody, not about a group of increasingly clique-ish and uncomfortably obsessed fans. AEW was never the final chapter. Returning to WWE a conquering hero was.
As stories go, it’s a good one.
To say many fans online took the news of Cody leaving AEW poorly is a bit of an understatement. To those without a firm grounding in wrestling history, jumping ship wasn’t a savvy career move or an opportunity to earn life-changing money. It was a personal and moral failing. Cody wasn’t just leaving AEW. He was leaving them. It got ugly fast, virtual strangers castigating a performer they didn’t truly know as a modern Judas.
People who have been around wrestling for years knew, deep down, that everything is a work. But those new to the sport, those sensitive summer souls who have not yet realized how dark and cold this industry can be, believed they knew Cody and the other AEW stars, felt like they were more than customers. To them, Cody Rhodes wasn’t a character on television. He was a friend who believed the same things they did, someone who owed them more than a performance—he owed them his life, his heart and his passion.
To them Cody Rhodes wasn’t a professional wrestler. He was a symbol. To them, AEW wasn’t a wrestling promotion. It was a family.
While long-time fans understood shoot interviews, social media and press appearances were just another way for a wrestler to sell themselves and their narrative to fans, about as real as the action in the ring, some believed they were a peak into a wrestler’s soul, a conduit for the truth.
Sure, it looks like the real thing sometimes. And, often, it hides deeper truths, carefully positioned amongst the lies. But it is marketing first and foremost. Many, even those in the scattershot media, don’t fully understand that everything a wrestler shows the public is part of the work—and that’s the heart of the problem. Social media provides intimate glimpses into a performer’s real life and personality. Fans who had watched Cody on Being the Elite felt like they knew him, Kenny Omega and the Jacksons.
Cody Rhodes is a professional wrestler and damn good one. He is not your friend. This distinction more than ever, should be crystal clear in everyone’s mind.
The truth is, it was time for Cody to move on. While still a compelling act to the AEW audience, you could feel their affections starting to fray at the edges. The once beloved Rhodes was hearing boos at certain arenas and neither he or nor the crowd seemed particularly comfortable with this development.
Presenting AEW as a movement and the wrestlers as family had created an uncomfortable dynamic. What happens when you want family to go away for awhile? Does that make you a bad person? Or is it easier to cast those aspersions on them?
But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Rhodes packing his bag and making the scary trip back to New York. This has always been how the industry works. A performer comes into a territory, captures the fans’ imaginations, and then moves on to a new fanbase and a new group of opponents to fight. If the timing is right, he pops smoke before he wears out his welcome.
It keeps everything fresh and provides opportunities for performers to reinvent themselves and grow, often returning to a former stomping ground with renewed energy and vigor.
This movement of talent from place to place has mostly disappeared in the decades since Vince McMahon has grabbed the entire industry by the throat. Once established in WWE, a wrestler will often see their entire career play out there, eventually typecast and slotted into a position with no realistic hope of permanent upward progression. This was the fate Cody left WWE to prevent—and the one he likely wanted to avoid in AEW as well.
All this is to say—it’s okay. It really is.
It’s okay that you loved Cody and wanted to see him achieve everything he was denied in WWE.
And it’s also okay if you eventually got tired of his act and wanted a break.
Most of all, it’s okay for him to make the choices that work best for his life. We each only get one. This is normal. This is good. And this is going to be happening more and more as AEW establishes a foothold in the sports world.
Get used to it.
The Athletes Are Not Your Friends
I'm really glad you wrote this piece because, as a wrestling fan of > 40 years, this jump confused me the most out of any I've seen. When you wrote "Most of all, it’s okay for him to make the choices that work best for his life," I guess that's where I'm stuck. I worry for Cody because yes, while this is all a work, he seems to have shoot worn out his welcome with fans and management in two companies in less than 10 years. And his focus (almost obsession) with WWE in his promos, symbolism and his dang entrance music is tough to reconcile with him joining that company which is only MORE profit-focused and ignoring wrestling (compared to when he left) as it prepares to be acquired. I get the arguments about money and that it was time for him to move on; I just fear that after 2 years or so, he'll be exactly where he was in AEW: the fans will be ambivalent at best, annoyed and hostile at worst, and he'll have to manufacture some story about why he's making his next move, while dragging his wife along with him for the third time. Anyway, I really appreciated the post!