Cody Rhodes reflects on his final days in AEW.
The American Nightmare departed the company he helped create in 2022, and later returned to WWE at WrestleMania 38. Rhodes has gone on to become one of WWE’s biggest superstars, and currently holds the Undisputed Universal Championship.
During an interview with Chris Van Vilet Rhodes opens up about what he considers a terrible final run in AEW. However, he does say that he holds nothing but love for the entire experience, and looks back upon it lovingly.
I don’t know if I consider it the high road. Maybe it is. How could I not, right? How [my run in] AEW ended was terrible, really. People are gonna write books later on, and these stories are gonna get out there, and then it’s gonna be a whole new ballgame. But the actual experience and everything we did…I could never….you ever seen the end of ‘The Dark Knight’? I think that’s, it’s super convoluted, and I’m not comparing myself to Batman, but there’s a piece of it that’s really important. To certain fans from the AEW fandom, they need the story to be [that] they didn’t want me, they pushed me out. They need, ‘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 [Khan] wanted to invest in this vision, and he has a vision as well. How special Matt and Nick [Jackson] and the BTE era and Kenny [Omega] and my rivalry in New Japan, especially from a dollars and cents point, that made New Japan more money than 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. I got to wrestle Brodie Lee’s final match. I got to lead people, young people, behind the scenes. I’ll always have a love for it. So I’m sure there’s some negative stuff, but I just remember it lovingly.
Rhodes will next be defending his world title against Solo Sikoa at WWE SummerSlam. Check out his full interview below.
