It has been over two and a half years since Cody Rhodes was seen in a wrestling ring outside of WWE. The American Nightmare spent three years in All Elite Wrestling before making a return to WWE in April 2022. During that time, Rhodes was initially positioned as one of the faces of AEW, as his efforts to help found the company led to him being prominent on all promotional material. That status reflected in the ring as well, as Rhodes competed in high-profile contests against brother Dustin Rhodes, then-AEW World Champion Chris Jericho, and Maxwell Jacob Friedman.
Around Fall 2021, Rhodes began to lose favor with the AEW audience. Crowds would regularly reject Rhodes as a good guy and online fans would actively push for him to turn to the dark side. Rhodes was left off the AEW All Out 2021 card and was subject to a nothing tag match at AEW Full Gear 2021. His last major feud was a rekindled rivalry with Sammy Guevara that played out completely on AEW television.
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Cody Rhodes Love For Pro Wrestling “Rekindled” in WWE
The American Nightmare’s passion for pro wrestling began burning once again upon his WWE return.
“As soon as I came back it had rekindled,” Rhodes said on So, What Do You Want To Talk About?. “Not just my love for pro wrestling, but it rekindled the feeling of, ‘I can get to the top. It’s not lost yet. I still have a shot at it.’”
Within all of Rhodes’s aforementioned in-ring work at AEW, he was also serving as an AEW Executive Vice President. During the lead up to Tony Khan’s company’s television debut, Rhodes took it upon himself to recruit blossoming independent talent to the roster. He is credited with bringing in stars like MJF and Darby Allin.
“I feel I was so caught up in the moment of the revolution that was happening, and wanting to be the guy they trusted the most with the revolution, wanting to be the guy they trusted the most when all these changes are happening,” Rhodes reflected. “The world is opening up and wrestlers are coming straight from the independents to a big time TV setting, I just wanted to be the face of all of that. I feel like I focused heavily on it, not realizing, ‘Is this working? Is it not working? Is this taking off?’”
Rhodes defends the WWE Championship against Solo Sikoa at WWE SummerSlam this Saturday, August 3rd.
