The Secret Truth Behind The AEW Codyverse

Cody Malakai Black
AEW

Cody lost to a debuting Malakai Black on August 4, losing again - albeit via black mist - at Grand Slam on September 22. He then got the win back on October 23. This programme, while very good at various points, accomplished nothing: Black was stigmatised as a meandering midcard act below Punk and Danielson, and Cody was no closer to getting as hot as he was in 2019. The Codyverse, then, could be in part described as meaningless.

The programme with Malakai Black dragged on for no discernible purpose. PAC was programmed against Andrade el Idolo - the other hot new signing who was not quite so hot upon the arrivals of Punk and Danielson - and those concurrent programmes overlapped at Full Gear, at which Cody and PAC went over Black and Andrade in a result that had no bearing on the tag title picture. It existed purely to get those wrestlers on the PPV card, and the storyline "justification" was practically non-existent. Cody and PAC and Malakai and Andrade teamed together on the hollow basis of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The match was exciting in spite of its oddness, but hardly effective.

The win didn't matter - PAC and Cody didn't ascend up the rankings or even work a traditional tag match together after the fact - and who were the babyfaces and who were the heels, exactly?

Cody's alignment was a mess, and not of the layered, nuanced sort - think Hangman Page in the autumn of 2020 - that elicited a range of emotions. PAC is a cold "Bastard" who has only ever played babyface by default in AEW. Black and Andrade cheated, so they were the default heels, but the onus wasn't on encouraging the audience to hate or fear them. Really, there was no onus on anything whatsoever.

This "enemy of my enemy is my friend" device was a key component of the Codyverse - and it was amplified when, 11 days after the pay-per-view, Cody teamed with Death Triangle to work an eight-man against Malakai, Andrade and FTR. Adding to the convoluted over-thought element, Andrade had paid the Pinnacle's MJF to procure the services of FTR for that night of November 24. What a waste of money: Tony Khan books those sorts of strange bedfellows matches all the time.

In parallel, adding to the weirdness, Cody - allegedly - worked under a mask alongside Fuego del Sol as Too Fast Too Fuego in a YouTube side quest.

CONT'D...(2 of 5)

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!