Despite helping to found AEW, it wasn't long before Cody Rhodes found himself struggling to connect with fans. Many will argue that's because he was a WWE Superstar in a company full of wrestlers who are the antithesis of that.
However, despite being one of the best workers on AEW Dynamite and clearly fantastic at what he does, fans didn't want to cheer Rhodes as a babyface and demanded a heel turn. Cody refused to change his stance and left the company before we could see where that storyline was heading.
Later returning to WWE, he's since found great success in the company and become one of its top stars in the process. He even main evented this April's WrestleMania and is still expected to eventually dethrone Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns.
During a recent interview, Rhodes opened up on when he believes he started losing his connection with AEW fans and why the WWE Universe was so quick to embrace him.
"Well, I mean, hats off to all the good guys who are out there because for a hot minute, they were endangered species. I mean, from the insider perspective, the babyface was an endangered species and now just look at the landscape. There's Seth Rollins, there's Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and there's people popping up left and right in terms of, it's not so endangered anymore."
"I think at the end of AEW, I was talking to my students about this the other day, it's just a case of, I have never underestimated our audience in a sense. That's why I use a lot of big words and promos and people will say, 'Oh, he's talking down to them.' No, they're not. They're not down. Like these people, some of them are doctors. Some of them are lawyers. Some of them are industrial workers. It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean they're not educated, like the wrestling audience is as educated as any audience."
"But at AEW, I think trying to do what I was doing there at the end was just a bit too meta. 'Hey, the thing we want is you to turn heel', so for me to do that, to turn heel, is by saying verbally out loud, 'I'm not going to do it', which is being a heel, but that didn't work, and in a sense, it did because I had a really fun match with Ethan Page where the crowd was just going nuts and I love the polarized crowds, the split crowds. I love the polarized, split crowds because obviously I am part of the Cena era of our industry so I loved it, but it might have just been over the heads of people, but everything was going in such a unique direction, you know, multiple shows and money was through the roof in the industry. It was really wonderful."
"I think that the WWE audience took to it in a completely different way, as if they dismissed whatever was happening, and this is just my hope and belief, I could be wrong. I think it's because they knew what you were seeing was real. There's always that gray matter and that suspension of disbelief, but I think they knew, oh, his return is more than just an individual returning. This is somebody who's been away for I think six or seven years at the time. This is somebody whose song is almost a rallying cry against WWE almost, and here it is playing out loud."
"I think maybe at its core, most people can understand a lot of what you'll see in the doc is you can be the most talented, you can not be talented at all, all these things, but betting on yourself, and I think maybe that's it. Maybe that's what they saw is yeah, he was this guy and he helped create a promotion, and yes, he did this, and yes, he smashed the throne and all this, but also bet on himself and where it led us. It’s a really beautiful segment at a beautiful show."
Check out the full interview with Cody Rhodes in the player below.