10 Biggest Highlights Of Cody Rhodes' AEW Career
Cody Rhodes burned more briefly than expected in AEW but he burned brightly all the same.
As the dust begins to settle on this week's bombshell, we can start to reflect on Cody Rhodes’ AEW career. And what a strange sentence that is to write. It’s shocking even to be writing a list with this title. At least without the words “So Far” at the end in brackets.
Rhodes’ path in AEW was an ever more divisive one as the man increasingly seemed to operate in his own separate Codyverse.
Arn Anderson’s Glock? That Homelander get up? The scattershot promos? Was Cody losing focus or was all of it leading somewhere? Was he the new John Cena or just ramping things up ahead of a heel turn to end them all? We may never know.
Nonetheless, it’s worth remembering that Cody did exactly what he set out to achieve. He wanted to prove he could be a bigger star outside of WWE and yet again this week he’s the biggest story in all of wrestling.
Here are ten highlights from his AEW run. A run so good, on balance, that your writer is still hoping that this is all a work and we’ll see him back on Dynamite in a month...
10. His long term rivalry with Darby Allin
While less flashy and memorable than his best matches and promos, his long term role building up talent and securing AEW’s future was arguably more important. His slow-burn rivalry with Darby Allin is the best example of this.
From a shock draw when Darby was a relative unknown to putting him over for the TNT title, Cody and Darby have had some great matches that helped make Allin the star he is today.
This was a rivalry premised not on a war of words, sneak attacks or a traditional good guy Vs bad guy dynamic. Instead, it was all about the growing, grudging respect of the younger man from the veteran. Both over the course of their rivalry and within the bodies of their matches.
That draw, in particular, put over Darby as a prospect to watch for the future, with a confident Cody initially showboating, only to find himself scrambling for victory in an increasingly desperate final five minutes.
Darby taking the TNT title from Cody also helped take him to the next level of his career. He may be back in that title’s orbit once again but he’s now elevated to a point where he doesn’t even really need a belt to stay over. If anything Darby could help Sammy Guevara level up by doing a job. Cody was a big part of putting him where he is today.