WWE’s Cody Rhodes Reacts to The Elite Staying With AEW

AEW officially announced earlier this week that The Elite — Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks and Adam “Hangman” Page — have all signed new, multi-year contracts to remain with the promotion for the foreseeable future. Despite interest from the WWE, the four stuck with AEW for a variety of reasons ranging from salaries to creative freedom to lighter schedules. Cody Rhodes, who initially helped launch AEW with the aforementioned group and Tony Khan in 2019 but left in 2022 in order to return to WWE, was asked to give his thoughts on their decision in a press conference on Friday. “The American Nightmare” will be in action on Saturday night at SummerSlam, taking on Brock Lesnar.

“I’m very happy when any wrestler or Superstar gets paid,” Rhodes said (h/t Haus of Wrestling). “I don’t want to sound carny or hacky but to know that your peers and people who take the bumps and go through all this and have that type of the physical struggle that comes with this gig, to know they’re getting paid is really exciting. I am over the moon that that group did what they did because, as Nick Jackson said, I believe they’ve made some NBA money off of it.

“I’m honestly just really happy for them. I am. I would have loved to have seen them again. But, you know, I’m very happy with the choices they made, and that schedule is a little different. This gig is, this particular gig at WWE, it’s a different type of personality that maybe fits me a little bit more. Yeah, but very happy for him,” he added.

Cody Rhodes on What His Heel AEW Run Was Supposed to Lead To

Rhodes revealed in an interview with ComicBook leading up to SummerSlam that the pseudo-heel run he was on during his last year with AEW was supposed to culminate in an interview with Sting. The only hint regarding that match was dropped in December 2020, but Rhodes chose to leave the promotion long before those plans could be executed. 

“I was going to wrestle Sting,” Rhodes confirmed. “I don’t think I’ve ever shared that with anybody and nothing was on paper or anything like that. But I can say I got a tremendous offer from AEW creatively, financially, the full package. You won’t hear me say anything bad about AEW or Tony (Khan) or my time there. It was a tremendous offer, but the offer wasn’t right for me. What I wanted to get back to was the first goal that I ever had (winning the WWE Championship). But yeah, that probably would’ve been the endgame. That’s what had been discussed, was to get one (match) with one of my heroes, Sting.

“And it’s one of those things, you can wrestle one of your heroes or you can work with one of your heroes and he can be the head of creative (Paul Levesque), you can’t have it all,” he continued. “And I think one thing I do pride myself on as a wrestler is I will make a decision. It might be a left turn, it might be exactly where you think I’m going, but I will make a decision. I will not get stuck because I felt like I’d been stuck early in my career and never want to be that way again.”

WWE SummerSlam 2023 Card

• Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso (Tribal Combat Rules)
• World Heavyweight Championship: Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor
• WWE Women’s Championship: Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Bianca Belair 
• Intercontinental Championship: Gunther vs. Drew McIntyre
• Cody Rhodes vs. Brock Lesnar 
• Ronda Rousey vs. Shayna Baszler (MMA Rules)
• Ricochet vs. Logan Paul
• SummerSlam Battle Royal