QT Marshal is no stranger to playing the heel. In fact it’s primarily what we’ve seen of him as of late on AEW. It was earlier in 2021 that he feuded with none other than Cody Rhodes – specifically culminating in matches at AEW Dynamite Road Rager on 7/7/21 and of course Blood & Guts – as well as having feuds with a lot of other faces, as we’ve seen with his more recent run-ins with Hook.
But behind the scenes, QT is of course co-owner and trainer of The Nightmare Factory, the pro wrestling training headquarters and facility for up and coming stars in the industry. His partners are none other than Cody Rhodes himself and of course Glacier (Raymond M. Lloyd) of WCW fame.
After Cody’s move back to WWE—a shocking event if ever there was one—Marshall states that the two still speak all the time and that he’s very happy for his friend. But he adds that for him, Cody’s return wasn’t a shock at all, and he goes on to say that he always figured Cody would be returning to WWE, even as far back as 2019…before AEW was even ever ‘a thing,’ as the saying goes.
He made the following statements while speaking on the Desert Island Grapes program:
“We talk every day. He doesn’t go into full detail about what’s going to happen when he’s about to go out there but we still communicate. He’s the closest thing I have to a best friend, I guess. He’s somebody that really went above and beyond to open a door for me and he’ll be the first to tell you he opened the door. I did all the work but sometimes you do need someone to open the door for you and he was willing to do it…
At the same time, I was willing to work really hard and also knowing that his name and reputation was kind of stamped onto my back, it made me work even harder because at the end of the day I thought he would go back to WWE before AEW had become a thing. I was like, I’m gonna train Brandi; I’ll work out with Cody for All In, all this stuff, but eventually he’s going to go back to WWE because there was no AEW and I’m okay with that…
So yeah, we still speak all the time. I’m super happy for him. I think this is something he really needed to do for himself, personally. We’ve all been there; we’ve all had those, no pun intended, crossroads in our careers where we have to decide what’s better for us, personally…
And that sounds selfish but at the end of the day, you can only make other people happy if you’re happy and if you’re not happy you’ll never be able to make anyone else happy…It sucks going to work every week without him there, that is the bad part…
But the good is man, watching Raw last night, I DVR’d it and I flicked it on and I got to see his segments and I think this is exactly probably what he wanted. This is why he left in the first place – he wanted to come back and be treated like this…”
via QT Marshall on Desert Island Grapes /cultaholic.com (Transcription)
via Nightmare Family /YouTube
Cody is currently smack dab in the middle of a feud with Seth Rollins…perhaps the best wrestler on the WWE roster at the moment, so Cody no doubt has landed in the right circumstances he probably envisioned from himself all along, as QT suggested in his comments as well.
The two had an epic match at WrestleMania and a rematch is planned for WWE’s Backlash.
