Cody Rhodes Fires Back at Vince Russo Over AEW Ratings Comments

Vince Russo, the infamous former writer for WWE, WCW and TNA, recently addressed AEW Dynamite's [...]

By Connor Casey

Vince Russo, the infamous former writer for WWE, WCW and TNA, recently addressed AEW Dynamite's ratings on a recent episode of his podcast. Though the show has maintained more than one million viewers each week and is unbeaten against NXT over on the USA Network, Russo claimed the show didn't appeal to the masses, and simply was putting on a product to please "the marks" of the wrestling world. He then made the bold claim that within three months AEW would need to change its product. Rhodes, who doubles as an executive vice president of the company, quickly fired back.

"We are happy and our partner is happy," Rhodes wrote. "We overshot projections and set a record for a WM debut. This is the era of cord cutting, simulcast and dvr bumps. We are proud of how incredible the numbers have been and know we need to work hard now more than ever."

He then pointed out the success of AEW's second show, AEW Dark, over on YouTube.

Rhodes hasn't been afraid to speak out against Vince Russo in the past. During the buildup to the All In event in 2018, Rhodes made it clear he and the Young Bucks had no intention of inviting Russo to the show or to the Starrcast convention.

"His name got caught up in a lot of modern issues he had with homophobia and things of that nature," Rhodes said at the time. "That's not getting heat. That's being an idiot. That's being naive. That's being ignorant. The wrestling world is being open to everybody."

"We don't wanna turn off a whole community," he added. "I couldn't see myself doing that. Also, The Bucks didn't know he was announced. I handled that. So no, I'm not doing his podcast. I mean no disrespect but that's kind of the end of it. He could tweet at me every day for the next ten years and we're done. I don't give my money to you if you don't deserve it. I don't think he deserves anybody's money."

This week's AEW Dynamite features Jon Moxley vs. PAC, the Lucha Brothers vs. Private Party and SCU vs. The Dark Order in the AEW World Tag Team Championship tournament semifinals.

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