THIS Is The Most Complete Pro Wrestler In The World Right Now

There's a premium quality to everything that Cody does, and in 2019, he had conspired to do it when there was more accessible wrestling than ever to contend with: WWE, NXT, NJPW, NWA Powerrr, Impact, ROH, wave upon wave of streaming services, YouTube archives.

Piece it together from the beginning, and Cody's AEW arc is striking in its brilliance. He drew on long, shared histories to put over his matches with Rhodes and Spears, drawing in turn an audience with believable, immersive stakes. On television, he cycled through every TV storytelling mode to sell his Full Gear match with Chris Jericho, and he executed each one perfectly. It's almost bittersweet, the memory of that feud, because it was f*cking enormous where now nothing can be.

His storyline with MJF was just perfection; with MJF controlling the narrative onscreen, and Cody controlling it behind the scenes, that premium quality returned through a tremendous sense of anticipation. Cody engineered a need, over months, to see MJF get his sh*t-kicking. Precisely when he needed a win, he did so against Archer in a tremendous old school story with Cody in full babyface vengeance mode.

DDP; Brandi Rhodes; Dustin; Arn Anderson: Cody uses that entourage for heat to delay the brawl because he's accomplished enough not to give it away.

He's the best promo in the game. Promo is short for promote; the idea isn't just to entertainingly cut down the rival. Cody promotes the hell out of his matches. The headline-grabbing interviews are well-documented and all but canonised as classics, particularly that go-home Full Gear masterpiece, but consider the lesser-seen promo he cut on Jake Hager to build their Fyter Fest match.

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