AEW’s Cody Rhodes Reveals Plans for a Political Career After Retiring From Pro Wrestling

Cody Rhodes has made it clear in interviews over the past year that he only plans to wrestle full-time until he’s 40. In a recent interview with Bleacher Report “The American Nightmare” revealed what he wants to do after he hits that age — become a politician. Rhodes stated, “I’m 35, and I said I only wanted to wrestle for five more years. I have political aspirations. I would love to run for the Senate in the great state of Georgia. I want to help with the sphere of influence I have created.”

Rhodes dropped the AEW TNT Championship on Saturday night at Full Gear to Darby Allin. It ends his second championship reign since helping launch AEW in January 2019.

During a recent media conference call, Rhodes explained why he approaches his AEW storylines as being “sports-centric” while other wrestlers don’t.

“I look back at what I said, and sometimes I chuckle because I hit things so hard because no matter what we were aiming for, no matter what we envisioned, you don’t know until you know,” Rhodes said. “You don’t know until the lights are on and the red light is blinking and you’re off and beaming to television sets across the world. When I speak of sports-centric wrestling, I speak of the wrestling that I grew up on — Jim Crockett Promotions, World Championship Wrestling, WCCW, everything that was available to me in the south and that library that still currently exists. I also speak of the current MMA scene with what the UFC is doing, the current boxing scene in terms of unscripted promos and drama that is existing based on who the people are, or who the people want [them] to think they are. So when it comes to sports-centric wrestling, I consider everything I do — my personally — to be sports-centric. I honor my own identity by presenting myself as such because that’s who I am.”

He then brought up the Dinner Debonair segment from a recent AEW Dynamite.

“That is who Chris Jericho is. There are different flavors of ice cream that we serve at AEW, and it is very funny to me some of the modern… wrestling journalists that tell you it has to be all one way. That hasn’t worked for anybody… so why tell us such? It’s very much different flavors. Chris represents his brand incredibly well. The meta style that the Young Bucks have does very well. The Strong Style approach that Kenny [Omega] is bringing back into his repertoire is very much himself. There are so many different flavors. But I can always stand by what I said then and very much still be able to say it now. Because what I do as a wrestler, what Cody Rhodes does when he’s on-screen will always be sports-centric. Because that’s the type of wrestling that I love and that’s the type of stories that I personally like to tell.”