Cody Rhodes has had a whirlwind first half of 2022. He left AEW in February following a ladder match with Sammy Guevara for the TNT Championship. Two months later, he showed up at Wrestlemania 38 to an incredible reaction. He has been cheered since his return to the WWE, while he left AEW to a chorus of boos.
While on Broken Skull Sessions with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Rhodes detailed more factors that led to his decision to leave AEW:
“The bottom line is that, it was my baby, it’s growing up and people are having fun and it doesn’t need me. Why I thought, it didn’t need me…I’m not being totally honest, maybe it did need me, but here’s what I needed; I did not want to be a gatekeeper wrestler. I did not want to be, ‘This is Cody’s thing, AEW.’ Some people look at it that way, not everybody does. ‘First program, they wrestle Cody, then they do Chris (Jericho’s) podcast.’ There’s a whole meme about it. I didn’t want to be a gatekeeper.”
Cody Rhodes on Broken Skull Sessions
Cody was involved in a storyline where he was never allowed to challenge for the AEW World Title again following a loss to Chris Jericho. Naturally, this limited what Cody could do as a main eventer in AEW. So it is unsurprising that Cody felt like he was a gatekeeper for the world title.
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