From Undesirable to Undeniable
Presented by FITE TV
Tony Schiavone is out first to introduce our guest of honor for the evening, Mr. Cody Rhodes. The “American Nightmare” came out with Pharaoh, who got a good pop before heading to the back.
Cody said he wasn’t sure what Tony actually did for AEW, joking about the press release being vague and confusing everyone. Speaking as one of the confused media members who had to ask him about this, I found this hilarious.
Cody spent some time talking about his mother. He joked that he finally got the comped tickets under control for All Out, but none of his family is coming to the show. He joked about just giving out tickets to random fans in the hallways, hoping his mom will show up like the scene in Talladega Nights where he’s waiting for his dad. He jokes about how his mom is “mean” and always got hung up on a weird superficial things in wrestling, like a guy having too much body oil, or his match with Dustin having too much blood.
Tony is asked if he’s going to call matches with Jim Ross. “Hell yeah, we are!”
Cody said the only thing he’s ever loved more than wrestling is his wife. That’s how he knew she was the one. He said wrestling was basically the only thing he ever cared about, didn’t go to college, but when he finally went to do it, he got nervous and thought it would be easier to make it as an actor first. His dad gives him and his sister money from his indie bookings, sent them to L.A. to follow their dreams, and hooked them up with DDP.
Cody said he saw Randy Orton on television and thought he was as big as him, and realized wrestling is what he always should have been doing. So he called John Laurinaitis with a recommendation from his acting coach, who hired him because he’s Dusty’s kid, and sent him to OVW.
“I just sucked. I was so green.” – Cody on being called up before he was ready.
“Randy and Bob Holly let me grow up. I think they know I’m green. They know I kind of suck. I think they know I’m not Dusty. And WWE let me grow up on their television show. And that was one of my problems – they still thought I was this kid. I could never not appreciate what they did for me. I grew up there. I met Brandi there. And I took everything that I could get, and I let them know, ‘There’s more to me than what you can see. And you’re not letting me show that here, so… And I never came back. I didn’t even sign my release papers.”
Cody said he had a good relationship with Vince, but it wasn’t enough. “I want to talk to you. I want to know you. But it’s really weird when you try, and you try, and you try, and it just doesn’t click.” He talked about how Dusty and Goldust both had great relationships with Vince over the years, and maybe Vince thought he would be the same, and like the same things. He’s nothing like them. “I pay my taxes! They’re cowboys!”
“Why try to impress one guy when you have the whole world to impress? I don’t think he’s ever going to like me. I don’t give a damn.”
He’s now talking about Harry Potter houses. He asks the audience what house the Sorting Hat would put Tony in. Brandi is “the slipperiest Slytherin”.
“What the hell was I talking about?”
Tony talks about doing the recent Control Room segment on AEW YouTube while under contract with MLW. Court called him up and said “What the f*ck are you doing?” He said he did it for Cody as a friend, and neither of them even thought about the contract ramifications. Cody joked about about there being such a thing as contract tampering, and the things he’s still learning about that side of the business.
Cody is excited about AEW not being bound to “TV-PG” and the creative freedom on TNT. “Wrestling can’t be PG.”
“You try to act like you’re on someone’s level, but Chris Jericho is on another planet. He’s also somebody who took things that shouldn’t have worked, and made them work. Yeah, Chris is a total dick, but he’s a great, upper-echelon, we-can-only-hope-to-be level of pro wrestler. For him to put his faith in us, I think it shook the whole system. Every day since it’s been hell on earth, but it was a big move.”
Cody says originally he just wanted to have this match with his brother, Dustin, and they would go their own ways. He knew that if Goldust delivered he wouldn’t have to offer his brother a job, and sure enough, Tony Khan came up to them after the match and said to Dustin, “In one match, you just made my company”.
Will there be 20-minute promos on AEW television?
“Not a chance in hell”.
“Heath Slater is not underrated. He does have kids though.”
It is “very likely” that a TV taping and a PPV will take place in Atlanta at some point in the near future. Cody says if you don’t “roll out the red carpet” the fans in Atlanta won’t show up, so they have to make it really special.
Cody is asked about gimmicks like Orange Cassidy and Joey Ryan. He says he was mad that nobody stood up for Orange when he was hired. “We didn’t announce him as the world heavyweight champion, but everybody deserves an opportunity.” He was one of the Bucks’ picks, and Cody told them they needed to come out in support of their guy. He said Orange can go and he’s a great wrestler, and he’s a part of the buffet that they’re offering fans.
Cody said Rey Mysterio “made his career”. Apparently Mysterio hand-picked him and told Dean Malenko that he was going to wrestle him at WrestleMania. Cody had never had a match on PPV at that point, but Mysterio had already picked him, and then put him over.