AEW Executive Vice President “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes recently appeared as a guest on an episode of Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast to talk about the “Go Big Show” and the process of filming the show. Cody Rhodes also revealed his thoughts on AEW’s first year.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“Somebody asked me, grade it, and of course, as part of the company, you not gonna give it a bad grade, but I said A, and there’s room for an A+ because we know where we need to grow.” “AEW’s first year, if it was its last year, thank gosh it wasn’t, it’s still been the greatest year of my life.
Learned a lot of lessons and learned some hard lessons about the burdens of management. If you weren’t popular before, you’re definitely not going to be popular as you enter that space.”
“It is surreal, the numbers. That’s why I love the data, and you’re great about the data, ‘The Demo God’. I love when [Chris] Harrington shows me this spreadsheet and talks about our international deals, and we’re having these calls. I was on the phone with Microsoft the other day. What am I doing? But then I know what I want. I know what we’re talking about, and that blows me away.”
“I told Tony, ‘Do not give me this job unless you want me to really do the job, really embrace it,’ which would probably include pissing you off from time to time. He’s never been pissed at me, maybe he has, but that’s been the most exciting thing is the brain trust here amongst the talent, the EVPs, the management [and] the committee.”
Cody Rhodes then talked about being paired with “The Enforcer” Arn Anderson, but Arn not really doing a lot at ringside, though behind the scenes Arn is remarkable.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“Arn’s out there with me by the ring pretty much doing jack s–t except holding his play card up, but what Arn does back here, my gosh.” “I literally want to look at them like, ‘where you been?'”
Cody Rhodes then talked about the advice pro wrestling veteran Konnan gave to him in order to achieve his secret to success. Cody said according to Konnan you always have to be around young people.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“Konnan of all people, I don’t speak to Konnan a lot, but he had told me his secret to success.” “I asked him, ‘Any advice?’ His secret to success was always being around young people. Hey, I’m going to listen to hip-hop.
Even if I don’t like it, I’m gonna listen to it. I want to know what they’re talking about, and that, to me, is the brightest part of the AEW current picture, the youth that is on the roster and the youth that is in the creative, the direction.
Cody Rhodes then talked about what AEW can improve on. He said that the biggest thing AEW can improve on is not taking the freedom each and everyone of them have been given for granted and maybe a little bit more of communication between the boys themselves.
This is what Cody Rhodes said:
“To me, one of our biggest pros is also our biggest con, no pun intended. We have such freedom.” “So such freedom, sometimes, means that things are too similar on the same show. Well, this guy’s asking me to join Team FTW.
Well, this group, they’re asking if he’ll join in this. So that’s one of those areas where that freedom is fun and pro, they’re not worried about the traditional rules. It’s punk rock, but also, you have to be disciplined so that it doesn’t desensitize the show.”
“Eight times out of ten, we’ve got the flow right, but on nights that we have and it’s where our own freedom has been our biggest enemy, but I’d rather that than a sanitized C+ show.
To me, the thing we need to work on the most is not taking the freedom for granted and maybe a little bit more of communication between the boys themselves. ‘Hey, I’m doing this. It doesn’t mean you can’t, but what else can you do? You’re super talented.’ I think that would go a long way.”
