Purrazzo Takes ROH Women’s Championship—Wardlow on Cody Rhodes’ dose of Heat as of late

When the future of ROH came into question after the promotion announced their hiatus, many wondered if AEW wouldn’t gobble up the territory and its library, perhaps using the promotion as its very own brand of NXT. This writer included.

It now looks as though Impact Wrestling is a tad more interested in taking the many talented individuals and making them their own, as recent events would have us believe…or so it would seem.

ROH announced that they would return in April, but that is still unclear. The ROH Champion, Jonathan Gresham has been appearing on Impact—even defended his ROH title (World Championship) to Chris Sabin for instance at Hard To Kill. Many ROH stars have flooded the scene, first at Hard To Kill, as we reported, and now on an episode of Impact, which aired just last night, they putting analyst (and former legendary wrestler) D’Lo Brown, through a table! Man, that PCO can still go!!

And in perhaps a bit of bigger news, The Virtuosa, Deonna Purrazzo, defeated Rok-C to become the new women’s ROH Champion! Now if that doesn’t spell some sort of unification of rosters much more significantly than the ‘Forbidden Door,’ I don’t know what does.

Gresham is headed to the beginnings of his new promotion, Terminus, as was previously announced for mid-January, with the ROH title in tow, and now Purrazzo has the women’s title as well as the AAA Reina des Reinas Championship.

On the flipside, this can also be that Impact is merely trying to help revitalize ROH, the promotion perhaps returning in April as planned, and now with these developments perhaps with a little more hype…and to have champions from other promotions do ROH events, perhaps that can only elevate ROH, but that too is merely conjecture.

It’s anyone’s guess as to what happens next, but it’s exciting for fans of ROH and Impact, as the tapings haven’t been this good since before the pandemic and the days of Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe and AJ Styles.

Wardlow on Cody Rhodes’ heat and alleged rumors…is it just a dose of jealousy?

Wardlow went into the brains behind AEW…the men he goes to for advice—both the legends and some of the younger talent that he trusts, and he went into Cody Rhodes’ sudden lack of appreciation showed to him by the AEW fans, as per an interview with PW Insider. He said:

“Shawn Spears, Cash and Dax, FTR, those guys have given me an incredible amount of advice and pointers and what to dos and don’t dos…As far as the true vets, I’ve had some good conversations with Arn Anderson, Jerry Lynn — very helpful. Jerry Lynn helps so many people backstage. He’s an absolute angel. And I think my biggest go-to is Billy Gun. He has really taken me under his giant wing and given me a lot of direction…

Every week, he has something for me to work on, and I’m very, very thankful for Billy Gun. And then when it comes to like real, real stuff, my go-to person is always Cody. I read somewhere that he was unapproachable and that is so far from the truth. He is the most approachable person there is backstage. And I can go to him for anything, any advice, any questions, concerns…

I’ve been affiliated for two and a half years, almost three years now. And I have never had anything but a pleasurable experience with Cody…I mean, he’s literally the biggest reason I am talking to you today and that I’m in AEW. I have him to thank, extremely. But yeah, man, I don’t know where all that talk comes from. I don’t know if it’s jealousy, people just hating on him, but I’ve never seen him treat anybody badly and I’ve never had a bad experience with him.”

via Wardlow – PW Insider

In the end Cody is seeing quite a bit of this and it’s rather unclear as to why. What is clear is the respect he gets from the younger breed like Wardlow and even in this difficult time, it’s refreshing to see and we’re sure Cody appreciates it.

The question I like to ask when discussing this topic is one I’ve asked many times. How can the fans hate on one of the individuals we have to thank for AEW? He’s selfless and always willing to elevate the other members of the roster. Odd, but unfortunately this is something that happens a lot in pro wrestling, especially since the dawn of the internet chat room.

People spread hate online that is often unfounded, and lies spread to create a false truth that many end up believing…something that can be said perhaps about anything in the limelight right now, be it politics, the pandemic, or fact or fiction in the world of pro wrestling, which has always been a tricky subject to navigate.

NEXT: Killer Kross on how he would have fared in AEW—Will we see The New Age Outlaws in AEW?