WWE Just Changed The Wrestling World Forever
Only smoke and mirrors, or a new paradigm shift...?
The paradigm has shifted again.
In an inconceivable development, Cody Rhodes, the leader of the revolution, has left AEW and is bound for the WWE establishment. It's a wild story, possibly the biggest since the very formation of All Elite Wrestling. Would the promotion even exist without him?
Tony Khan had surveyed the shifting landscape ahead of All In, which was Cody's brainchild; indeed, negotiations for an as-yet-unnamed wrestling league were so advanced that Tony Khan flew Chris Jericho into the event to facilitate his cameo appearance. All In didn't act as a pilot for AEW, though the proof of concept could not have hurt the talks with Warner.
The 2018 Kenny Omega Vs. Chris Jericho mega-match, itself driven by the new stratosphere of critical acclaim Omega entered alongside Kazuchika Okada a year prior, first sparked within Khan the realisation of his e-fed. But make no mistake: Cody's ambitious thinking, networking and sublime character work elevated the counter-culture into something that felt massive. He took an amusing after work f*ck-about, in Being The Elite, and catalysed a movement that felt too important not to monetise. He was, at the very least, indirectly responsible for the formation of AEW. It doesn't exist without Cody, Omega, or the Young Bucks - or any configuration of that group that isn't the whole. In an astonishing development, one of the original Executive Vice Presidents is longer All Elite.
What does the Cody news tell us?
CONT'D...(1 of 6)