The Secret Truth Behind The AEW Codyverse
Cody, being an EVP with creative input, was blamed for this curious, narratively empty phenomenon - but what was lost at the time was the fact that Tony Khan was the head booker of AEW. These were his ideas - and he uses these ideas to this day.
The Codyverse was the first narrative indication of what remains the core AEW problem: Tony Khan signed far too many wrestlers in 2021 and signed scores more after the fact. He's stuck with an overcrowded roster and often scrambles to get them on his programming. By the time he'd signed Punk and Danielson, there was no need for Malakai nor Andrade. (What havoc will the arrivals of Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada wreak on AEW's narrative?).
Consider the 2023 feud between Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy. To get as many names as possible on his TV, and to reward Best Friends who probably did deserve a big Wembley match, their All Out encounter was built via Stadium Stampede at All In. It was excellent, if very weird. The Blackpool Combat Club teamed with Santana and Ortiz to take on Best Friends, Eddie Kingston and Death Triangle's Penta. Yes, Kingston and Ortiz were at odds, and yes, Eddie had taken issue with Mox's conduct as a heel and sought to "fix" it - but Best Friends and Death Triangle have feuded on and off since February 2020. The enemy of his enemy was Penta's friend that night. Mox defeated Cassidy at All Out; the result was reversed at Full Gear. At time of writing, Cassidy isn't as hot as he was last year and Mox is still trapped in the unfocused tweener group that is the BCC.
What was all that, if not a belch from the Codyverse?
To underscore the wider point being made here, there is now such a thing as the 'Jerichoverse' into which many wrestlers now get "stuck". Again, Jericho has a big say in his direction, but he is not the head booker of AEW. Jericho and Kenny Omega feuded separately with Don Callis throughout 2023. The Callis Family's Konosuke Takeshita, Powerhouse Hobbs and Kyle Fletcher "enjoyed" a better record, but they were essentially used in the same way as Malakai Black and Andrade were in 2021. They were in the mix, but didn't advance up the card. They were involved in a sprawling, ultimately meaningless overlap as Omega and Jericho joined "forces". Hell, when explaining this team-up to the Young Bucks, Omega - with little conviction - said the quiet part loud. "Think of it as an enemy of my enemy is my friend thing". Until his awful battle with diverticulitis, in another parallel with Cody's 2021, this was the most irrelevant Omega has felt in AEW. Cody once set himself on fire to elevate the flimsy material. Omega took a very pointless and desperate chair shot to the head from Hobbs.
What was all that, if not a belch from the Codyverse?
CONT'D...(4 of 5)