12 Exact Moments AEW Booking Stopped Making Sense

5. The Codyverse (November 13, 2021)

Cody Rhodes was savvy and bold enough to realise that, by late 2021, he had effectively been sidelined to accommodate CM Punk and Bryan Danielson. Mired in the upper midcard and through his own decision-making unable to vie for the World title, there was nowhere to go but out. The widely derided ‘Codyverse’ booking was the first sign that there was nothing of purpose for him to really do.

He traded wins with Malakai Black over the summer as Tony Khan bottled jobbing out his rapidly expanding roster. The exact same thing happened with Andrade el Idolo. This is less “stopped making sense” and more “political booking with zero drama” - until the bizarre events of November 2021.

At Full Gear, a perma-bleeding Cody teamed with PAC to defeat Malakai and Andrade in a weird, tweener-tinged match. PAC teaming with Cody made sense. They were locked in singles feuds with their opponents on the night. But what drew Malakai and Andrade together? Well, as alluded to onscreen, Malakai was married in real life to Andrade’s fictional valet in WWE. That was cute insider knowledge masquerading as a story.

At some point, after inexplicably waiting well over a year, FTR decided they wanted to attack Cody for saying “F*ck the Revival” on Being The Elite several years prior. This led to an eight-man tag on the November 24 Dynamite. FTR, Andrade and Malakai defeated Cody Rhodes and his loyal, trusted friends Death Triangle. MJF “loaned” his Pinnacle stablemates to make this deal happen, just in case this storyline was missing yet more extraneous detail.

Convoluted and very wasteful, WWE’s far simpler approach won out with Cody Rhodes.