The domino effect of Seth Rollins’ snarky comments about All Elite Wrestling has finally made its way to AEW executive vice president Cody Rhodes. For those who missed it, Rollins was recently asked about a possible match with Kenny Omega at WrestleMania while at a fan convention in Houston. Rollins said the only way the match would happen would be “when Kenny is done playing in the minor leagues over there.” This led to backlash from both the fan and AEW commentator Jim Ross, who called out Rollins for being less over “than his girlfriend (Becky Lynch).” Lynch retorted and said she could beat up AEW’s entire women’s division.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The back-and-forth seemed to be over, until Rhodes was asked about Rollins’ initial comments while appearing on the Cheap Heat podcast.
“The ‘developmental’ comments, when they came from Kenny,” Rhodes said (h/t Fightful for transcript). “And the ‘minor league’ comments, when they came from Seth. I think that’s just two really great athletes trying to prod and poke and get under the skin of another. I don’t think they were as mean spirited as the world made them out to be. I think Seth is super talented. He works his ass off for them when a lot of people at that company just collect a check. I sit back in those moments and don’t take it personally. Part of wrestling is us talking shit about each other.”
Omega recently gave a somewhat in-character interview with Sportskeeda where he blasted the NXT roster.
“It’s weird, because it’s hard to say you’re going to war with people that I call my friends,” Omega said. “And yet, we are going to war. And yet, when I sit back and look at the grand picture it’s like, I’m going to war with these dudes that, if we were on the same show together, the same promotion…
“Let’s pretend there were no borders. Let’s pretend there were no promotions. Let’s just pretend there’s just one big promotion. If these guys were in the same show as me, they’d be in the dark match. They’d be in the opening match of my main event match. You wanna call that a war, you wanna call that competition? Go ahead. Maybe it’s fun for you to do. That’s cool. But we’re different planets. And you’re going to see that right away, when you see 10,000+ arenas sold out. You’re going to see smiles on fans’ faces. And you’re going to see real stars. Not developmental talent but real stars appearing on your television sets, every week.”
Both Rhodes and Omega will be headlining this Saturday’s Full Gear pay-per-view, as Rhodes challenges Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship while Omega takes on Jon Moxley in a Lights Out match.
