All Elite Wrestling Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes was recently part of a media call where he discussed a number of topics. Those include AEW’s interest in signing the former UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez, who just recently made his debut in WWE at this past Friday night’s WWE SmackDown On FOX.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“He’s definitely somebody that I am keeping an eye on. Cain was one of those athletes – it’s not even an athlete thing, it’s almost a strange, natural ability to pick up our industry.” “He picked it up so quick and he wasn’t doing mixed martial arts Cain Velasquez, he was trying to do true lucha. And he had worked with Psycho Clown who, Psycho Clown, if you haven’t caught him, is just amazing. What a stud!
“So, I was blown away by Cain Velasquez. I would love to bring that tandem and that tag back to All Elite Wrestling. I’m glad to hear he like what we’re doing; I like what he’s done with AAA., I continue to monitor it.” “And that might be something you see as a personal project for me if and when Cain would like to come play ball with us. I’d be down. There’s something special- I mean, the man is a former UFC Heavyweight Champ, a nice guy, represents a whole part of the world, just a special human being. I think he’d be a great fit to our family.”
Cody Rhodes then talked about the importance as well as the significance of the talent’s win-loss record in All Elite Wrestling. He also mentioned that aside from the talent’s win-loss record, they will also be looking at how an opponent is defeated as well as how a talent wins his/her match.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“I can tell you that as far as wins and losses are concerned, it isn’t just the wins and losses.” “Almost look at it how college football is appropriated when you look at the quality of wins. One of the things that Tony did which was really wonderful was the press release with Sports Illustrated about me and Jericho, where he talked about the quality of wins that I had by beating Dustin and beating Shawn Spears.
“It will play a heavy role in the show – wins, losses, the quality of wins, and then as the numbers go up in terms of matches, that will be a really wonderful time to break out the heat chart and you start getting percentages on body parts, and how many times someone has lost to ‘The Walls’ or a ‘Codebreaker’.” “And that will really help as our numbers start to go up in terms of actual matches. On the other side, we hope that the narrative element of it, the wins/losses matter in building [storylines], and the prestige of the championships. We hope that it will be congruent with the ratings and they will go up with all of that, as well.”
Cody Rhodes then talked about wanting to, sometime in the future, be able to air Dynamite in Europe as well as other international countries around the world if a deal can be reached with an international TV network or company that follows and has a similar list of guidelines that TNT has.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“It’s definitely something that we’re looking at currently and not particularly because you’re asking me and you’re from Germany… The German market is massive; I just did a German magazine two days ago, I was in two wonderful sell-outs in Paris in terms of France and that market.” “We don’t want to leave anybody out. One of the things about having a major cable carrier cover this company is that the international deals are very hard to navigate and they are beyond my depth as an EVP. But we have the right people in place because we want the product everywhere: Germany, France, and the smaller European countries.
“Right now, with FITE TV, I know that there are some places excluded and left out, but we’re doing everything we can to get what they call in production ‘ignitions’ to all these countries. And I’ll do everything in my power because it was always my goal for everyone to see.” “We don’t have a network subscription service just yet so we’re working with the tools we have. And our focus was Dynamite to begin with and then growing it out, so I would hope that nobody gets left out in the first month, at least, of Dynamite. Definitely something Mike Weber and FITE have done a great job that we’re working on and, believe me, Matt, Nick, and Kenny – a question we regularly ask in our group meetings is, ‘When are we going here? How do we get there because people want to see it.'”
