10 WWE Tag Team Wrestlers Who Held Their Partners Back
3. Cody Rhodes (Goldust)
"I need my older brother" became the much-loved and much-mocked refrain over All Elite Wrestling's 2019 summer love-in. Blurting out the beg through bawling eyes after their Double Or Nothing bloodbath, Cody was asking for help ahead of his Fight For The Fallen main event against The Young Bucks. Dustin was only too happy to oblige.
Their exhausting classic was as much about proving WWE foolish for not showing enough faith in either of them during their runs, but their reunion had echoes of a broadly successful babyface run against The Authority in 2013. It was here where Cody first showed signs of the solid all-rounder he had the potential to become, but found his personal apex occupied by the unlikeliest of alternates.
16 years his senior, Goldust's final return to the company for the angle proved to be the most fruitful bell-to-bell. He was sublime as a babyface, timing his comebacks and survival strategies with such innate precision that his younger brother - the supposed primary recipient of this push - was instead something of an anchor.
With that confused chemistry, the team weren't long for the world - certainly not as long as they should have been. A Goldust/Stardust reimagining killed their heat, and Cody's entire enthusiasm for working for WWE.