7 Ups & 6 Downs From AEW Dynamite: Thanksgiving (24 Nov)

3. Egomania

Action-wise, Cody Rhodes, PAC, and the Lucha Brothers vs. FTR, Andrade El Idolo, and Malakai Black was spotty. It was nowhere near as self-indulgent as the participants' respective Full Gear 2021 matches and featured a handful of adrenaline-popping sequences, but lacked the usual level of excitement viewers have come to expect from AEW's multi-man tags.

Rhodes' role in the match is the main reason for the match finishing as a net positive.

This was all about Cody's ego. He played to the crowd throughout, behaving like a pure babyface, playing the crowd like a fiddle from start to finish. That he ended up being a complete liability to his team was just as effective, too. Rhodes made several mistakes in this match, carrying a lesser load than his partners, and went for a selfish blind tag to massage his own ego about halfway through. His accidentally nailing PAC towards the end contributed to the finish as well, giving his partners a legitimate gripe.

Much of the defeat was Rhodes' fault, which was by design. An effective bit of storytelling in a relatively unspectacular match.