According to Jim Cornette, Cody Rhodes may have always eyed an eventual return to WWE to “finish the story,” long before AEW was even conceptualized.
On a recent edition of his “Drive-Thru” podcast, Cornette reviewed the Peacock Original documentary, ‘American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes.’
While discussing the documentary, Cornette speculated as to why Cody Rhodes took himself out of contention for the AEW World Championship during the early days in the promotion. He said,
“It makes perfect sense why he took himself out of the AEW title picture at the start of the company. A lot of people were always saying ‘he’s not going to book himself on top.’ He didn’t want to win any kind of world title on any kind of mainstream television so as not to blunt the angle that he’s obviously had in his mind for the WWE: ‘To win the belt they stole from my daddy in the [Madison Square] Garden’ before AEW even started.”
Notably, Rhodes challenged Le Champion, Chris Jericho, for the title at Full Gear 2019, with the stipulation that if Cody were to lose, he’d never challenge for the title again.
