Cody Rhodes Admits That Boxing Himself Out Of The AEW World Title Picture Was Not The Correct Decision

At AEW’s Full Gear 2019, Cody Rhodes challenged Chris Jericho for the World Championship. That would be the last time he was able to wrestle for the AEW World Title, because on the Dynamite before the PPV, Cody Rhodes proclaimed that if he did not defeat Jericho for the title at Full Gear, he would never wrestle for the belt again. Which, he never did.

Now that Cody Rhodes has left AEW, and returned to WWE, he has spoken about the decision for him to never challenge for the AEW World Championship. Cody was recently a guest on “Out of Character with Ryan Satin,” and he elaborated more on that stipulation, stating that boxing himself out of the World Title picture was a big mistake.

“Immature enough is what I said in the moment and I think more I meant, that role, I did well with it and I was very active and I did start the community department and Brandi did bring Kulture City into the wrestling and sports entertainment space. We were very active in terms of all the facts and assets of that gig, but I think that job was meant maybe for…we wanted a wrestling company brought to you by wrestlers, for sure, that was a huge part of the mission, but maybe it would have been better served for me at age 45 than it did at age 33. I am just now entering the prime of my career. To make political decisions like boxing myself out of winning a World Championship, those decisions, in hindsight, were not the correct decisions in what I should have been doing. I’m the best wrestler in the world, I can tell you that without it sounding braggadocious, simply because it’s all I do. I train to do it, I live and breathe it, I have a school here with four rings, I treat this like an athlete in the NFL would treat a game.”

“With that in mind, I needed to go and be that, and I wanted to be both. It was too difficult and that’s where I didn’t have the maturity to balance it. It wasn’t a matter of being one of the boys vs. not because I’m no longer just one of the boys, I love it and wish I could be one, but I’ve been in this position before and been on the other side and in the production meetings and part of the technical production, but I think it would have served me better later in life when I could look at a show and be like, ‘I don’t want to be in the top spot.’ You need that good competition in your locker room, that positive and real competition, if I can’t be the best wrestler in the world on television because I’m afraid I’m going to offend colleagues because I’m also their boss, that was the situation we were in, and I just played it in the middle. There was only so much of playing it in the middle I could do and now I’m not in charge of anything, other than me and being a pro wrestler. I say I’m the best wrestler in the world, I felt like it for years, now we’re in a situation where I do have to be careful of how I say it because I’m not carrying the belt.”

Cody Rhodes AEW contract expired at the beginning of the year. He eventually left the company after wrestling his final match on January 26th, 2022 and would make his return to WWE at WrestleMania 38.

(h/t Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions.)

If you enjoy Bodyslam’s content, you can help donate to the site here. You can also visit our PWTees store and buy Bodyslam official merchandise here.

You can listen to all of Bodyslam’s podcasts by following us on Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube Channel,  or any of your favorite podcast platforms.

Follow us on Twitter: @BodyslamNet