The sun appears to be setting on the CM Punk era in AEW, as after an amazing debut and an AEW World Championship reign cut short by injury, the chaos after All Out seems to have put any hopes of a continued run in AEW down for the count. Since the brawl occurred between Punk, the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and Ace Steel, more details have started to surface, and recently a report stated that Chris Jericho called Punk a cancer to the locker room. In a reply to a tweet regarding how Omega, Matt and Nick Jackson, and Omega changed the world when they helped start AEW, someone brought up Cody Rhodes and why he left, and Rhodes put any notion of him leaving because of his fellow EVPs or Punk to rest.
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“I didn’t leave because of the Bucks/Kenny. I’m forever bonded to those men over what we created and I remain very proud of it, and I didn’t leave because of/or have issues with Punk,” Rhodes wrote. “We got along. Not money, not booking, just a personal issue and my wanting to go for the big one.”
Rhodes returned to WWE at WrestleMania, and it was one of the biggest moments of the entire event. Afterward, he would deliver several great matches against Seth Rollins before he, unfortunately, tore his pectoral muscle. He somehow still wrestled with that injury at Hell in a Cell in a move that has pretty much become an unforgettable WWE moment forever, and now he is rehabbing and recovering from his injury.
During his time in AEW Rhodes delivers another memorable moment when he destroyed a throne that was reminiscent of the one Triple H had during his King of Kings run. In a previous interview, he explained why he decided to smash that throne in AEW.
“Plain and simple, I was a huge fan of Triple H. I learned a great deal from Triple H, a great deal,” he added. “I probably wrestled him in the Capital One Arena. But when push came to shove and I thought I was better than 99 percent of the people he was putting ahead of me, he didn’t see that. So in that moment, there is no greater revenge in the world than success. So I knew I was walking out to a sold-out crowd, wrestling a 50-year-old man in a match that people, at one point, deemed unworthy and the place was literally shaking. So I felt no need. Like, this is the perfect time to do it, to fire my own shot, and it was my own shot, not an AEW shot.”
What do you hope to see Rhodes do when he returns? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
