Cody Rhodes has become the most universally-beloved babyface in decades, yet just two years ago, he was heavily booed by a faithful he helped build. Despite never officially turning heel, Rhodes spent his final days in AEW receiving the reception fans would typically give to a bad guy. The good will from the AEW audience began to evaporate during his white-hot feud with Malakai Black in Summer 2021, with his first major negative reaction coming at the inaugural AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam. Four months later, Rhodes exited AEW altogether, disappearing from the spotlight until April 2022 when he return to WWE at WWE WrestleMania 38.
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Cody Rhodes Likens His AEW Exit to The Dark Knight’s Ending
The American Knightmare made himself the villain that AEW needed.
The narrative surrounding Cody Rhodes at the time of his AEW departure was that AEW no longer viewed him as one of the company’s top guys and consequently were not willing to pay him a salary comparable to that of newly-signed main-eventers like CM Punk and Bryan Danielson. Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Rhodes noted he is fine with embracing this narrative akin to the way Batman allowed Gotham to paint him as the villain at the conclusion of The Dark Knight.
“It’s super convoluted, and I’m not comparing myself to Batman, but there’s a piece of it that’s really important. To certain fans from the AEW fandom, they need the story to be they didn’t want me, they pushed me [out], he was bad, they need that story, they need me to be the villain,” Rhodes explained. “I was always fine with accepting that because of the respect I have for it in the first place. Regardless of any petty squabbles, I will always have a love for it.”
The Dark Knight ends with Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent turning heel, killing various Gotham citizens and taking Police Commissioner Jim Gordon’s family hostage. At the time, no one in Gotham knows who is responsible for these murders. When Dent falls to his death, Batman and Gordon realize that the people of Gotham seeing that their District Attorney causing crime would lead to havoc across the city. As a result, Batman agrees to fall on the knife and take the blame for the murders to preserve Dent’s image.
While Rhodes admitted that likening his departure to The Dark Knight ending is not a 1:1 comparison, there is truth to the idea that he allowed a false narrative to live in order to preserve the strength of an institution. In the immediate months following Rhodes’s exit, AEW enjoyed some of his strongest success, drawing large houses and massive pay-per-view buys for AEW Revolution 2022 and AEW Double or Nothing 2022.
Rhodes defends his WWE Championship against Solo Sikoa at WWE SummerSlam on Saturday, August 3rd.
