Why Cody Rhodes Leaving Is Best For AEW
8. No More Disappearing Acts
One of the gripes some have had with the Cody Rhodes character across the past year or more, is that it's hard to get fully invested in Cody when there's every chance he make take a sabbatical from AEW the following week.
With his commitments to The Go-Big Show and Rhodes to the Top TV shows, it's often felt like Rhodes has been a fleeting presence on AEW programming during this time. Granted, we'll get Cody in hefty segments on Dynamite every single week for a spell, but after, say, a month of that, the American Nightmare will be completely absent from AEW TV for a further month.
These absences seem to come at the worst of times, just when Cody is getting some momentum and the audience is - or at least was, at one point - getting behind him. As crowds got invested in Rhodes, he ups and leaves for a prolonged period, meaning those crowds are less interested in getting as passionately behind the performer once he eventually returns.
For a quick comparison, Cody wrestled 24 AEW matches in 2021, whereas John Silver had over 40 contests, Brian Pillman Jr. had nearly 50, and both Matt and Nick Jackson were edging towards 40 bouts a piece during that same time.
Of course, this is all relative when considering Rhodes' position on the card as a major singles act, but the other side of the coin is how Cody's matches were bulked together in the mini-runs he'd have before taking another break from AEW TV.