Cody Rhodes recently appeared on “Rasslin’ with Brandon F. Walker” to discuss his thoughts on his angle with Anthony Ogogo and his feelings on the “four pillars of AEW.”
Cody Rhodes said he regrets the angle he had with Anthony Ogogo:
“I can on record just go ahead and say I regret almost everything about the Anthony Ogogo angle,” Rhodes began. “I didn’t hate it. I was having a good time. Anthony is a former Olympian. He’s definitely someone who is a developmental talent. We’re training him, we recruited him, and we’re bringing him up through the ranks.”
Sharing his thoughts on his infamous promo, Cody said, “I’ve never gone on record as saying this, but this is the perfect time. I stood by what I said in the promo. I had this promo that was infamous. I stood by it because I thought the content was good, and I thought the intentions were good. However, a white guy talking about race relations, who has an American flag tattoo on his neck, I can see why people would use the term, ‘tone deaf’ when it came to that. Then trying to defend it, again, intentions were good and sincere. I was so excited about Brandi and the baby, but that should have been one where I went out and just winged it because everything in wrestling, I work really, really hard on it.”
“You hear about Randy Savage and his matches and promos. There are wrestlers who tend to be like Randy with their preparation, and then there are wrestlers who are more like my dad who can cut a promo on the produce in the grocery store, and it’s better than most stuff you’ll hear on television. I tend to be more of the big time thinker, planner, work shopper, all that stuff. I had worked on that one really hard. That’s what made it even more like, ‘Damn.’”
He continued, “Every now and then you’re going to come up to the plate and strike out. I overplanned it and struck out, although I stand by it. I don’t think anything with the content, but once that had happened, it set the angle in a way that Anthony, as far as wrestling age is concerned, is like 18. He’s a baby. He doesn’t know what’s going on. It set the angle in a tailspin. It just wasn’t a classic UK vs USA fun spirited deal. I was going to go over to the UK. We have the return match and now I just never want to think about it again.”
Cody doesn’t like the idea of “The four pillars of AEW”:
“I hate the four pillars, not the actual idea, but the concept that he (MJF) just went and decided to say, ‘We’re the four pillars’ without really confirming. The guy who said the four pillars thing, he was the most unknown one coming on board and literally was stuck to my side like a little baby because I knew him from the Northeast independent scene, mainly NEW from Mike Lombardi where he’s getting paid like $15 a match.”
“The next thing you know, he’s treating it like he came in and was told, ‘Hey, it’s you four.’ No, when we all came in, it really was an artist haven in terms of what you go out there and put on, that will determine it. We thought we had recruited really well, and I think we absolutely did, but you have to sink or swim. It’s live TV. That’s the thing. You’ll find a lot of independent wrestlers, and they’re great independent wrestlers, they’re great at forming these really complex promos that they put in video packages and stuff like that. Put them on live TV. If they do well there, then you’ve got a winner, and Max did, in his defense.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Rasslin’ with Brandon F. Walker” with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
