All Elite Wrestling

[Coffey]

Can't wait for the inevitable heel turn where Cody then pretends it was all a ruse & the marks bought in. 

[Enforcer]

I just finished watching Lexy Nair interviewing Anthony Ogogo...even without Cody’s tone deaf promo, there was no way I was rooting against that dude. He is funny and he looks so cool. I hope that he smashes Cody at DON. 

[WingedEagle]

I've been a fan of just about everything Cody has done in AEW and think he's been a consistent high for the promotion feud in and feud out. But as I believe @El-P succinctly put it, this promo was cringeworthy at best.  A big miss.  Go crush it at the PPV, get your trademark or whatever is important, and never, ever revisit this approach.

[strobogo]

I think his promos suck in the sense that 9 times out of 10 he comes off as much bigger asshole than the heel the promo is about and his go to is to shit on them in ways that just make them look second rate and there's nothing they can do to overcome the guy everyone knows is the boss saying guys are shitty mid carders no one likes. He also goes very heavy on self indulgent nonsense which makes him seem like an egomaniac if he's a face. 

[sek69]

Cody comes off as the one friend in the group that always tries to one-up everyone no matter how ridiculous it makes him look. It can be funny or cute at first, but eventually everyone just starts rolling their eyes thinking "oh christ, not this asshole again". 

[Enforcer]

26 minutes ago, WingedEagle said:

I've been a fan of just about everything Cody has done in AEW and think he's been a consistent high for the promotion feud in and feud out. But as I believe @El-P succinctly put it, this promo was cringeworthy at best.  A big miss.  Go crush it at the PPV, get your trademark or whatever is important, and never, ever revisit this approach.

Agreed. He has been apart of some of the best stuff in the short history of AEW. The Dustin match with the promo afterwards, the promo on Chris Jericho, the 10 lashes from MJF, the insane pops every time he would show up. He established the TNT title. He was my favourite wrestler in the first year of Dynamite. It’s been downhill since he left to film the Go big show and it’s unfortunate. 

 

[MoS]

The babyface in this feud continues to be really cool and do really cool things

[SirEdger]

But isn't this a tweet from about 2 years ago here?

[MoS]

Didn't catch the date, the main tweet doesn't show it. Regardless, better Twitter game than Cody "Some have said this was the greatest promo in modern wrestling, it is soo difficult to be proud of American heritage these days, but I am" Rhodes

 

[Enforcer]

He will be an even bigger babyface after he knocks out Austin Gunn on Wednesday. In fact, I want him to go through the entire Gunn Club, that would make him a 1997 Sting level babyface to me. 

[Coffey]

On 5/15/2021 at 10:04 PM, Enforcer said:

He has been apart of some of the best stuff in the short history of AEW. The Dustin match with the promo afterwards, the promo on Chris Jericho, the 10 lashes from MJF, the insane pops every time he would show up. He established the TNT title. He was my favourite wrestler in the first year of Dynamite. It’s been downhill since he left to film the Go big show and it’s unfortunate. 

His match with Dustin & the post-match promo were great. I think I even voted that MOTY that year. I really liked the 10 kendo stick angle he did with MJF, too & his first stuff with Jericho with him punching out the glass on an early Dynamite. He's done some good things, for sure, as you've mentioned.

He's also done the throne breaking with the sledgehammer, this tone-deaf USA stuff (and the QT Marshall stuff as a whole), the Brandi stuff, gender reveal, reality TV show, the neck tattoo, this recent Twitter stuff. His massive pyro, all the action figures. It feels like he's slow burning turning heel via some meta bullshit because if not, he's just... really bad at reading a room, I guess? Debut of Jake the Snake? Cody. Debut of Sting? Cody. Shaq? Cody. I just think he thinks he's a lot bigger star than he really is.

He's had some highs & he's had some lows but lately, the lows feel lower than the highs felt high, if that makes sense? I don't know, whenever Cody or Jericho come out, it just feels like, to me, they're trying to do what WWE would like. I want AEW to be an alternative to WWE as a wrestling show & they just kind of scream "sports entertainment" I guess.

[sek69]

To be fair, all pro wrestling is sports entertainment, it just happens that WWE was the one who said the quiet part out loud. It's also sports entertainment run by a guy in his mid 70s and his #1 yes man who's been at least 25 years out of touch with the business.

 

I agree there has been a sharp drop-off in the quality of Cody's act since he left to do the Go Big show. It really seems like once he got a taste of the entertainment business a switch flipped and he didn't seem to care about his wrestling career. Ever since has been a series of baffling segments/promos/angles where it seems like he's been mind swapped with some sort of Bizarro Cody.

[El-P]

By the way, I have defended her and gave her the benefit of the doubt many, many times, mostly because I really enjoyed her as a pro-wrestling valet/promo. But this is appaling :

Ok. A piece of history ladies a gentleman. A rich white man going "60 years ago it was segregation but now I'm on the way to have a great princess (BTW, I *hate* how people refer to their girl child as "princesses") who'll be both black & white, so USA GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD ! Live the dream evil foreigner from the UK or leave the country !" is a piece of history. Not to mention he's saying that shit to a european *black man* (whose mother is white too I believe ?). Newsflash, for all the godawful thing Europe has done in term of racist politics toward black people (colonization says hello), actual segregation in the motherlands was never one of them (of course there was social segregation, but actual separation of black and white people in the physical landscape, nope). The "USA greatest country evah, American Dream real" shit is stupid and embarrassing on its own especially for the non-US audience, but when you add the racial stuff it's downright appalling. Upper-middle-class buffoons, both of you (princess is right, that's what she'll be).

AEW is usually very self-aware, self aware of its shortcomings (the evolution of the Dark Order, lately the change of character of Miro) and most of all self-aware of pro-wrestling history and ridiculousness/camp (I for one LOOOOOOOOVED Matt Jackson dropping a totally sarcastic and cringy "I love you" spot at the end of the SCU match), but this kind of stuff displays a total lack of self-awareness (like, say, when they teased Christian, and they absolutely have backtracked on this one too, to the point Matt Sydal was making fun of the "HOF worthy" quote last week) and yes, it's like Cody is not on the same line with what I called earlier on the "aesthetic" line of the Elite, who have always rocked that self-aware, straight meta at times, approach, which is the one I enjoy and want to see more of.

This promo was garbage, face-palm inducing and this tweet by Brandi, sadly, very sadly, makes her sound like.... can't believe I of all people will admit to it... Stephy. Yikes.

And BTW :

11 hours ago, Enforcer said:

He will be an even bigger babyface after he knocks out Austin Gunn on Wednesday. In fact, I want him to go through the entire Gunn Club, that would make him a 1997 Sting level babyface to me. 

This. So this.

[NintendoLogic]

The root of the problem is the "Cody can never challenge for the AEW championship" stip, a legacy of the period in late 2019 when the EVPs were running wild with terrible ideas before Tony put his foot down. Being a featured star on a wrestling program when you're completely out of the title picture by necessity doesn't seem sustainable. They were able to sidestep that for a while with the TNT title, but now he just comes and goes as he pleases and exists in his own bubble separate from the rest of the show. He has to create his own issues, which leads to garbage like that promo.

[El-P]

I don't think Cody in the title picture would change anything. It's a matter of visions of what pro-wrestling is and what AEW should be. Cody apparently believes you can cut a "rah rah America Great" promo in 2021 like it's 1985. And to a part of the audience, sure you can (it's still pro-wrestling, ya know), but probably not the younger part whose vision of the world is not rooted in the same cultural and political bath which 80's pro-wrestling was (Reagan, Rambo, Wall Street...).

[Dav'oh]

On 5/15/2021 at 8:41 AM, Stiva said:

he has a psychotic desire to recreate all of his daddy’s programs.

 

On 5/15/2021 at 10:29 PM, El-P said:

while Cody seems to chase the ghost of his father

 

On 5/15/2021 at 10:29 PM, El-P said:

And the whole "American Dream" thingy, in 2021

Cody interviewed in Fighting Spirit #94, 2013.

"FSM: Which wrestlers influenced you? I suppose your father would have to be on that list?

CR: Not so much - only because I don't want to be like him, because it's so easy. I always get mad when I see guys do their father's finishers, and things like that. Yeah, that's great, and Dusty Rhodes was popular with the fans, but it's nostalgia. I want to do my own thing, and part of that is out of respect for him. So I'll steal from totally different guys like Shawn Michaels, Jake Roberts, Pat Patterson, Buddy Rogers and Nick Bockwinkel. I try to steal a lot from a lot of the guys my dad competed with, like Ric Flair. I try to take more from them than from him."

I think I could insert, "Pull the other one - it plays Freebird" at several points in that response....

[strobogo]

"I could go by Cody Rhodes, I just don't want to because I'm my own man and don't live off my father's reputation. It's not a trademark thing, I swear." 

 

Goes on to be announced as Cody (with Brandi) Rhodes for a couple of years until he can secure the Cody Rhodes trademark, immediately uses it as soon as he can after swearing he wouldn't.

Gets a wrestling show on Turner.

Said promotion hires Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone, Dean Malenko, Arn and Tully, The Giant, Sting, Dustin Rhodes, multiple appearances from DDP, multiple appearances from Eric Bischoff, an appearance from the Rock N' Roll Express, Jake Roberts, multiple production people from the Nitro era.

Within 3 months of the promotion being active they're running a "Bash at the Beach" event (in January for some reason)

They announce their own War Games within 6 months of the promotion being active but end up having to postpone it due to a pandemic breaking out

And now he's going by The American Dream for a weird xenophobic love it or leave it angle in 2021

 

Lol

 

[Enforcer]

Getting away from Cody a little bit. After today’s BTE, I want to see one last Christopher Daniels run.  Great stuff.  

[strobogo]

Oh shit I forgot a TV Championship and a dog collar match lmao

[Boss Rock]

I agree that Cody doesn't really need to be champion. They still have Page in the wings, have struck gold with Darby, and Mox will for sure get another reign down the line. I wouldn't necessarily be against removing the stip in a renewed feud with him and MJF though. That feud still has plenty of juice.

[sek69]

I always assumed the endgame for the Cody stip would be that a heel champion does something so dastardly the fans demand that it be lifted so the heel can get their comeuppance. Maybe that was the plan before the pandemic wiped everything out (can't really do that kind of story with no fans around to demand it after all), maybe the plan was do feud more with Brodie Lee, which obviously went out the window. Either way it's been puzzling to see a guy who's an EVP floating around with nothing much of importance to do as if he was a directionless midcarder.

[strobogo]

So you mean...as if he were Cody Rhodes then

[The Man in Blak]

Brandi's going to stick up for her spouse, especially on Twitter where the new kayfabe gets worked. That doesn't make her Steph - that makes her someone that's married.

Ultimately, I actually don't have a lot of complaints for how they've handled Cody up to this point, other than wishing they would have held him off camera to sell the loss to Brodie Lee even more. As good as he's become on the stick, he always has a tendency to get over his skis a little bit in promos and this last one is far and away the most egregious example of that, which is all the more reason to keep giving him the celebrity matches and the matches to elevate or introduce new incoming talent. (The TNT Title run was absolutely perfect for this.) Let the undercard ride along on his heat, however weird he may make it at times.

 

[NintendoLogic]

Holy shit.

[PeteF3]

I remember a roast or comedy special years and years ago, probably early 2000s, where one guy (not in a whiny OMG PC POLICE manner) talked about the end of ethnic-based comedy and how we were running out of ethnic groups to make fun of. But he said that for as long as he still could, he would target the remaining "allowable" ethnic groups for humor and sent out a warning to "you damn, dirty Swedes."

This feud is like that stand-up bit, but without the irony.