By giving Cody Rhodes a Hollywood ending, WWE could have made AEW a minor character
As Cody Rhodes walked down the ramp at WrestleMania 39 I was still hoping for a miracle.
The miracle I wanted was for Roman Reigns to win. I was enjoying his lengthy title reign and I wasn’t totally connecting with Cody’s character. But, to be completely honest, Cody Rhodes and I had some baggage.
But before Cody even entered the ring, I managed to let go of that baggage.
When Cody Rhodes, son of the late Dustin Rhodes, handed over his weight belt to Brodie Jr, son of the late Brodie Lee, it made me, the daughter of another gone too soon dad, have a change of heart.
For fuck sake Cody, you got me again.
Now let’s unpack the baggage. I wasn’t happy with Cody when he left AEW for WWE. I wasn’t happy with Tony Khan for letting him go but that’s another issue.
Cody, an EVP who helped found the company, deciding to walk away from it all, fundamentally changed AEW’s story.
You see, I’ve thought more than once about how AEW’s story would be told in a movie.
For me, the opening scene would have always taken place on June 11, 2015, the day Dusty Rhodes passed away.
Dusty’s passing would be the catalyst for Cody deciding to take the ultimate risk —to leave the WWE and go out and try and make it on his own.
He’d write his list of everyone he wanted to wrestle on the Indies, then tick off the names (this would probably be shown in a Rocky-style montage). He'd also travel to Japan, and eventually, he’d come across a tweet by Dave Meltzer, saying Ring of Honor couldn’t sell 10,000 tickets. .
That tweet would lead him and the Young Bucks to create the hugely successful All In and the event would be credited with helping to break WWE’s chokehold on wrestling and showing there was an appetite for something different.
After the success of All In, about two-thirds of the way through the movie, Cody would get a text from a man named Tony Khan, congratulating him on All In and then asking ‘Want to go All Out on betting on ourselves?’
This, of course, isn’t how AEW was formed but in Hollywood, like in pro wrestling, you can take liberties with the truth.
We’d then see Cody, Khan, The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, make the deals, sign the contracts, and finally launch AEW on January 1, 2019.
After struggling for recognition and feeling left in his father’s shadow, Cody would get his happy ending, by creating a company that proved you don’t need WWE to be a success in wrestling.
The final scene of the movie would be the triumph of Cody’s match with his brother Dustin at Double or Nothing 2019, with Cody finally getting to tell the personal story he’d always wanted to and doing it on his terms.
The screen would then fade to black and a title carding reading ‘The End’ would appear and we’d all go home happy. That's it, the movie’s over, and Cody has achieved his dreams.
Of course, I assume that after the film is released some man wearing a plaid shirt on YouTube would make a video titled ‘Here’s what AEW: The Movie left out' and tell everyone who enjoyed my happy story that, in reality, Cody never became a World Champion in a major wrestling company.
Yes, in real life, AEW didn’t give Cody his Hollywood ending. Or maybe, more accurately, Cody didn’t give Cody his Hollywood ending.
He started off well with the Dustin feud and then leading The Elite against Chris Jericho and the Inner Circle.
But it wasn’t long before Cody made the fatal mistake of declaring he would never challenge for the AEW Championship again if he lost to Jericho and then, spoiler alert, he lost.
Unable to ever win the AEW Championship, Cody ended up becoming AEW’s first TNT Champion.
He initially had a good run, taking on a variety of challengers, including Eddie Kingston, and feuding with Mr Brodie Lee. However, as the pandemic winded down, so did fans’ unwavering support for Cody.
A very misguided promo and feud with Anthony Ogogo started Cody’s character on a sort of downward spiral where he seemed to lack direction and self-awareness.
Fans were growing tired of Cody's character but he seemed unwilling to change and from late 2021 to early 2022 he was locked in a TNT title feud. That is until February 15, when Cody announced he had left AEW.
So why did I have such a problem with Cody leaving? Was it because I now had to rewrite my AEW movie script and turn him into a minor character?
Well, sort of. But instead of Cody becoming a minor character in AEW’s story, his leaving the company turned AEW into a minor character in his story.
AEW could have been Cody’s story, his great triumph, but now it’s a couple of scenes in the middle of the movie, after an indie run and time in Japan.
By having to go back to WWE to write the perfect ending, Cody gave WWE the best advertisement.
In Cody’s mind, it was only in WWE that he could prove he really was the star he envisioned himself as. Only there could he both continue his father’s legacy and fully emerge from his shadow.
AEW wasn’t enough for Cody. It wasn’t enough to be WWE’s competition and maybe even eventually beat them.
He didn’t want to prove them wrong by creating something that could compete with them, he wanted their validation. He wanted to prove them wrong by becoming a star in their system.
Winning the AEW Championship wouldn’t have fulfilled Cody - he didn’t even really waste his time chasing it.
So that’s what makes the result of WrestleMania all the more baffling to me.
By returning to WWE, Cody handed them, not only a great comeback story and a great father-son story, but also a great ‘fuck you’ to the competition story, yet WWE chose not to tell it.
Sure Cody can beat Roman at SummerSlam, or a next year’s WrestleMania but it’s hard to imagine the timing will ever feel better than it did last Sunday.
Cody Rhodes, returning to WWE at WrestleMania 38 and capturing the Undisputed Championship a year later would have been perfect. It would have shown all Cody really needed to do to achieve greatness was to come home.
It would show that WWE is where dreams come true, where you can get your happy ending and anything you do outside of it is just a stopgap on your way back to the big time.
But WWE didn’t let him tell that story. Instead, there’ll be more obstacles for Cody to overcome, he’ll have to work harder and keep struggling before he ever achieves his dream.
You don’t always get a happy ending, not in life, not in WWE, and not even in Hollywood. But in this instance, the story was so perfect, that to deny Cody and the audience that triumphant closing scene feels, not only wrong, but short-sighted.
WrestleMania ending with Cody in the ring with a rubber chicken rather than him holding two championship belts isn’t a good ending to any movie. It wouldn’t even cut it by WWE Studios’ standards.
But for me, at least now my script for AEW: The Movie doesn’t have to include an awkward scene where Cody’s dreams come true in the competition.