10 Wild Confessions From Huge Wrestling Stars

3. Cody Rhodes Takes Responsibility For Toxic Tribalism Fan Culture

John Cena Howard Stern Thumb
WWE.com

You think that thing that happened in WWE was bad?

What if it happened in AEW, huh?

Bet you'd love that! Yeah, you'd absolutely eat it up if it happened in AEW, wouldn't you.

God, the online wrestling fan experience is exhausting, post-2019. It was never especially great. You couldn't rate a WWE match ***1/2 - i.e, very good - without some demented stan calling you worse than sh*t for not giving it *****, which you definitely would had it taken place in the Tokyo Dome. But it's so much worse now.

Now, we all live in hell, the new, tenth circle of which is "Tony Khan must have leaked the Vince McMahon sex scandal in order to deflect attention from Jeff Hardy's DUI arrest".

Brains are rotting everywhere. Tribalism is rife and infects everything. You can't escape. You can't even browse Twitter for more than a minute before somebody makes up NJPW having a problematic women's division just to stand up for WWE. "I can put some of the blame on my shoulders [for this]," Cody acknowledged on After The Bell with Corey Graves.

Why would Cody do this to himself?!

Not appearing on Corey's podcast, just to be clear. Why would he take responsibility for ruining every Twitter reply ever?

Doesn't he not want to turn heel?

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Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!