10 Wrestlers Who Reward You For Paying Attention
3. Cody
Cody is a more fitful but no less effective storyteller than many on this list.
He will veer across the range of his personality - bleeding heart passion to the exacting standards of his clinical ambition - to play a nuanced and situational pro wrestling character. He'll fight from underneath against a Mr. Brodie Lee, and play the obnoxious bully demanding that Darby Allin finally get on his level.
His alignment will change, but his consistency as a character does not. He is a fantastic long-term storyteller who never loses focus of what matters.
His angle with Darby spanned over a year and told a very detailed tale: Cody had spent so long luxuriating in his superior record that he failed, to the ultimate cost, of recognising that his number was up. In storylines, he didn't pay attention to Darby's progressively improving technique, but the storyline encouraged you to do precisely that. Darby was always error-prone. Cody relied on that and grew complacent. He was outsmarted by the very weight belt he had spent too long focusing on. It was never about Allin's size.
The true brilliance of their simmering rivalry is that there remains scope to revisit it, down the line, with Cody using newfound respect to drive their next match.