During a recent appearance on “The Koalition” podcast, AEW President Tony Khan and Cody Rhodes commented on the new “Rhodes To The Top” reality series that will debut tonight after AEW Dynamite, Ricky Starks’ role on the show, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Cody Rhodes on Ricky Starks appearing on the reality show: “I think somebody who really dove in, they tried to play cool, but they really dove in, in a positive way, was Ricky Starks. Ricky, He knew what this was, you know, they put the cameras up and we just go. It wasn’t a scene. It wasn’t framed up in an artificial way. He helped build a majority of Liberty’s furniture one day and it’s all documented. He also broke what I would consider probably the number one rule of reality TV. We were having a party and I think he pre-partied, maybe had a few too many drinks prior to filming. It’s just a golden episode, because you can see me trying so hard to bring him back to Earth. But Ricky dove in. “[I’m excited] for people to see the newly crowned FTW Champion, how motivated he is, how passionate he is, what he went through with his actual neck and the friendly side of him. He really shines on-screen. Him and 10 of The Dark Order have a really fun buddy element to them that I think is just cute. I thought they did really great.”
Tony Khan on Starks working on the show while he was dealing with a neck injury: “Those guys did extremely well. I also thought, as you alluded to, that it was really nice to be able to have Starks sink his teeth into something while he was out injured and it really gave him more than a sense of purpose, it gave him really, I think, a good feeling at a time when he was probably pretty antsy and nervous about his injury. He got to have some fun, and you know, not only stay occupied [but] to really do something that will live on and show another side of his personality. I think a silver lining of the injury was that he was able to really focus on Rhodes to the Top and during a period where he was out for a few months.”
(h/t – Fightful)
