Cody Rhodes recently spoke to the New York Post about All Elite Wrestling’s roster philosophy, a potential TV future, mocking WWE, and more. Below are some highlights:
Cody talks mocking WWE on Being The Elite:
“If you’re able to have fun with yourself, nobody is safe from BTE. BTE is, on a personal level, super valuable to me because I try to be the most aware person ever and that means aware of the things that are wrong with me and BTE is one of the best things because it’s brought it out. It’s brought out my ego and these silly little things about wrestling.
I think we take it pretty lightly on WWE. The more we do stuff with AEW, the more we are like, ‘Well, that joke, we don’t need it.’ But there’s some stuff because they have been in power for two decades and even more than that really without any competition, and I’m not dismissing that run TNA had during the Spike time. I’m just saying it was a blip to them versus the situation with the type of backing and the type of partners that WWE thinks we have and they’re right.”
Cody on if Chris Jericho’s had any creative involvement in AEW:
“Chris Jericho is always gonna be the same. There is a reason he’s closed out a WrestleMania. He’s very, very, very involved and he’s very smart and very fair.
I think heavy, heavy, heavy disagreements with me and Chris Jericho. I have a ton of respect for him, but we disagree on a great deal. But him coming to AEW is a huge endorsement, massive. This guy, I grew up watching him and to watch him at that rally, it was MJF [Maxwell Jacob Freeman] who he walked by. To watch MJF, who doesn’t sell anything, and literally, his eyes light up so it was a surprise. That to me is a big endorsement.
He’s not wrong when he says he’s the bridge between the fans we have and the fans we don’t and I’m glad to have him [Jericho]. He’s kind of a d–k, but I’m glad to have him.”
Cody on Tony Khan’s AEW roster philosophy:
“I think Tony’s initial investment in all of this, it didn’t start with, ‘I want to run the alternative wrestling company.’ It started with The Elite itself. We were talking at one point about financing an All In 2 or the sequel, but he was really smart and had the foresight to see what I saw and what Matt [Jackson] saw is that if you have Kenny [Omega], Matt, Nick [Jackson] and myself and Hangman [Page], you have that. All you have to do is put names across from those and you have a pretty damn good card.”
Cody on how a TV deal could benefit AEW:
“To me, it’s treating it as live sports. The core to that is characters, and I think characters beam across your television set or devices in ways perhaps people have forgotten. Wrestling used to have these great enhancements matches, these squash matches where you would see these characters and the things he could do. He’d tell you what you had at the pay-per-view event and things of that nature.
At the core of all wrestling, when it’s done right, is the characters and their connection to the audience. If you really think about it, we’re the only thing out there — the pro wrestling genre in general — we are the only thing out there with that type of engagement with the audience, and that engagement somehow affects what happens in the ring, especially when you are someone like a Chris Jericho and you can hear it, feel it completely in your bone. It’s really important that the character engage the audience. You don’t just want to be watching a show, you want to be participating.”
To read the full interview, click here.
