Though it's almost been a year since Cody Rhodes made his re-debut in WWE at WrestleMania 38, stories continue to come out about his time in AEW, some of them good, some of them bad, some of them representing “what if” scenarios that fans will unfortunately never get a definitive answer to one way or another.
On his most recent episode of FTR with Dax Harwood, “The Ax” peeled back the curtains on one of those very questions and let fans in on one of those “what if” scenarios: what if Rhodes and FTR actually teamed up to form AEW's answer to the Four Horsemen, which technically, Arn Anderson owns the trademark to.
“We did talk to Cody a lot about forming a group with him,” Harwood said via Fightful. “This was before Max [MJF] came along. We talked to Cody a lot about it. He had Arn, we had Tully, we wanted to create a supergroup with Cody, us two [FTR], and we had some ideas of who could be the other members. Around that time, Brock (Anderson) was starting to come up, and we felt that if Brock were with us, he could stand outside of the ring and watch us, and if we had eight-man tags, he would be able to learn by standing on the apron, getting in for a few minutes and tagging out, and we could talk to him after and tell him why certain things happened. I think Cody really wanted to as well, but I think he was vehemently against being a heel, at least at that time.”
Now, for fans who watched Rhodes flash the “four” hand gesture for months, maybe even longer, during the mid-to-late section of his AEW run, the prospects of a Four Horseman-style team-up between “The American Nightmare,” who was famously using Ric Flair's Figure Four Leg Lock finisher at the time. Add in a team like FTR, aka Arn and Tully 2.0, and a fourth, be that Brock Anderson or a more formidable performer like Ricky Starks, and the group looks pretty darn formidable – much moreso than FTR's actual faction, The Pinnacle, proved to be.
Cody Rhodes could have saved AEW from The Pinnacle.
Speaking of The Pinnacle, Harwood talks about them too on his most recent edition of the FTR podcast. When his co-host, Matt Koon, pointed out that Shawn Spears, the undercard singles performer of The Pinnacle, called the group “DOA” in a tweet, Harwood shook his head at “The Perfect 10,” embracing the heat but ultimately agreed with his sentiment.
“Spears is going to get more heat than I am; thank you, Spears, you take some away from me,” Harwood said via Fightful. “Spears is finally branching out and understanding how good he is and that he doesn't always have to keep his mouth shut if he doesn't want to. (The group was DOA) because I think, one person in the group probably thought that he was bigger than the group, maybe, and probably felt that this was just designed for him, maybe. Maybe he wasn't the only person that thought that. I didn't think at first we thought that. At first, someone, and maybe a couple of other people outside of our group too, felt this was a vehicle for just him and them. We felt, us and Wardlow, I say us being me, Cash, Spears, and Wardlow felt that if we all worked together, we could all get over, and we could all get each other over. Obviously, Max was going to be the main event guy winning the world belt. We know that. We felt everybody could benefit from this group and in turn, benefit who we individually worked with, and in turn, benefit AEW's business. It just didn't pan out that way.”
Hmm… now, whoever could Harwood be referring to? Well, if it's not himself or Wheeler, and it's not Spears, then it must be Wardlow, right? Wardlow, who Kayfabe wasn't even signed to AEW at the time, was the diva who kept the team from having a dominant run at the top of the card and instead lead to the group fading away to obscurity?
… no, it was definitely MJF, as he put The Pinnacle together, using a name he reportedly liked before AEW, he tried to use the group to advance his career in a post-Cody Rhodes team-up world, and he ultimately left the group behind in order to begin his singles feud with Wardlow and then go after the AEW World Championship, which was held by CM Puk when he left the promotion for his 2022 summer vacation and was won by CM Punk once more when he returned.
*sigh* that Cody supergroup is looking even better in hindsight.
— Shawn Spears™️ (@ShawnSpears) February 26, 2023
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