8 Things We Learned From Cody Rhodes On Stephanie McMahon's WWE Show
4. “An Alternate Wrestling Promotion To WWE”
Stephanie’s show acknowledged Cody’s creative frustrations as Stardust and his decision to leave the company in 2016. They even touched on his time in the independent scene after that, but AEW wasn't mentioned by name. In fact, it’s only noted that Cody helped start “an alternate wrestling promotion to WWE” and that's it - there weren't even any details about when this happened or why.
Obviously, this is a huge gap in the man's story. AEW is even more important to Cody’s tale than it was for CM Punk’s WWE comeback narrative last week. Look, everyone gets that WWE don't like acknowledging other major companies unless they’re ancient history, but come on. Rhodes was literally one of the guys who launched All Elite Wrestling in the first place.
That group is too big a piece of his history to leave unchecked. WWE and ESPN didn't need to gush with praise for Tony Khan's league or put them over as true competition, but they should've mentioned the three letters by name and let Cody give even a tiny bit of context as to what was running through his mind back in 2018/2019.
Returning to WWE, patching things up with Triple H, watching Vince McMahon depart and becoming poster boy for the market leader wasn't part of Cody's thinking when AEW launched. There's a gripping story to tell here, and they left it on the table due to pettiness. Punk refusing to mention All Elite made sense due to legal goings on, but that almost certainly isn't the case with Rhodes.
Stephanie's Places just avoided the topic like it was no big deal