Cody Rhodes discussed a wide range of topics during an interview with PWInsider. Here are the highlights:
TNT Title:
“Well I think AEW has always presented, especially to experienced talent, even myself in management, just looking at myself from a wrestler the way I present it to other experienced talent who have a lot of equity is that you’ll play your music how you want to, there is no writing core, there’s much less scripting going involved. With that in mind the TNT Championship has been, kinda been open mic, it’s an open challenge but it’s been an open mic for me pretty much every week as far as how I want my wrestling career, what I want to do next. It’s very important to me, very…I think some people might think it’s silly but I’m a wrestler so it’s not silly to me but it is important to me that I grow as a wrestler, I’m only going to do this for 5 more years and the next 5 more years I want to really carve out that bell to bell aspect of what I was able to do, cause I’ve always been very confident in myself in the ring, and I try not to be overly confident, but we’re dealing with different athletes now and we’re drawing from all walks of life in terms of the wrestling world…that’s what I always loved about The Elite. There’s all these rumors about the Elite and our relationship and things of that nature but one thing that’s for sure is why it has worked is because Matt and Nick have this incredible, high paced meta-like wrestling approach to tag team action that’s really just remarkable to watch, and then Kenny maintains some of his DDT elements and his Puro-roots and the long form New Japan style match, and what I brought to the table was classic Jim Crockett Promotions old Southern wrestling, old Southern drama, but what I think is special about the group is I think everyone in the group is capable of doing what the other could do in a way, and that’s what I wanted the TNT open challenge to represent – my ability to hustle bell to bell, because it’s what I train for every day, it’s very much a professional sport to me and I train like a professional athlete, so I’m going to want to be the best at it. And per recruitment of or I guess scouting of opponents pretty much been half and half, when I think of it in my mind, Tony has some people he wants to see get in the mix, and then there’s some people I’ve wanted to see get in the mix, and never really is it a hard sell to one another on these things. Arn Anderson’s actually been involved, his involvement goes beyond the on-screen coaching role, it really is special to have him around and Jerry Lynn secretly is the, kinda been attached to me by the hip for the last few weeks and my gosh, I’m so glad to have him because it feels like 2007-8 all of a sudden again, it feels like I know nothing, and he doesn’t do it in a mean spirited way but it’s never about ‘oh what you did well or what worked’ it’s about ‘well you could have done this, you could have done this’, and really special…he’s found his identity as a coach, but this has gone very well, and I’m a large critic, very well in terms of viewership and ratings, very well in terms of critical reception to the matches but the trick is it’s gotta keep getting better and I think there’s an element of unpredictable to the open challenge that I want to kind of turn the volume up on.”
How the Elite’s relationships have changed as they’ve built AEW:
“I think in a way and a lot of people will be like “No way, he’s lying”, I think in a way it’s actually made us stronger, but we don’t spend near as much time as we used to together. Everyone is so busy, Kenny is working from the time he gets there, Matt, Nick uh are always up to something in terms of the BTE is such an important brand to them, and it’s an important brand to AEW, um, and then I’m always up to something. We literally have you know, a couple of rooms in the hallway where management is all and they’re basically different offices, and sometimes you think there might be a lot of goofing on in there but it’s not, it’s literally from 1 segment to the next, from 1 talent to the next, so I think in a way years from now we’ll look at it and say it made us stronger, you know, I do miss some of the fun we had when we didn’t have as many cares in the world, believe me. I’m never on BTE anymore, BTE has become a spotlight for younger guys and girls and I totally get that, but uh, I have nothing but respect and love for Matt, Nick and Kenny and if you ever hear about any in-fighting or any things of that nature, sure, I’m sure there’s arguments and I’m sure there’s differences of opinion but we have never gone into a show where we weren’t all on the same page, very professional, those guys all put the professional in professional wrestler and uh, you know, we don’t spend near as much time together anymore but we have this show with our faces on it and I know we want to make it the best.”
