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Though he was long gone from AEW at the time, having already re-debuted in WWE at WrestleMania 38 and even wrestled his now-signature Hell in a Cell match against Seth Rollins, more than a few fans wanted to know what Cody Rhodes, the blue-eyed revolutionary who helped to spearhead All In nearly half a decade ago, though of CM Punk's Brawl Out with Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks at All Out. Did he care that AEW's initial vision was effectively tainted at that fateful event, with the proverbial paradise apple quite literally as bitten as Omega's arm? Or was Rhodes fully in WWE mode, with AEW his competitors a la Tony Khan's war analogy?
Fortunately, none other than Ariel Helwani, on his MMA Hour show, decided to dedicate a few moments of his interview with “The American Nightmare” to his past in AEW, and Rhodes provided some very interesting insight into the situation, including that he didn't even know what went down when he initially woke up the next day.
“I woke up the next morning and I had no joke, I think 63 messages,” Rhodes said via Fightful. “So I was very worried that something was said about me or Brandi. I did everything I could. I gave a lot. I have great memories with AEW, I do. So I hope it's respected mutually, right? So I was worried. I was like, ‘I hope somebody to take a weird shot, something like that.' That wasn't the case. It was about this press conference and all that.”
Unfortunately for Rhodes, there were more than a few weird shots taken that night, but none of them went his way.
Cody Rhodes speaks on the AEW All Out locker room altercation between The Elite and CM Punk
– The MMA Hour pic.twitter.com/ms8T3nfRrS
— Public Enemies Podcast (@TheEnemiesPE3) February 13, 2023
Cody Rhodes provides some interesting insight into AEW's All Out brawl.
Digging into the matter, Rhodes noted that he still strongly believes in the vision he and his friends, Nick Jackson, Matt Jackson, and Kenny Omega all had for the company before suggesting that Punk maybe wasn't on the same page.
“I had a great relationship with Matt, Nick, and Kenny still do,” Rhodes said. “It definitely was tested by being young executives. It was tested by having different opinions on wrestling, but our different opinions is what made it strong. That's what made us work. I want to do Crockett and old school and they want to do PWG and West Coast and d*mn, I loved it. That contention is what made us bond. We're bonded forever because of the things we did. I also had a great relationship with Punk. He was my dinner buddy. They'd order dinner for me at AEW every week, it was one of my management perks or whatever. I don't think he knew, I always just put it on my tab because I wanted to make sure he was getting something. So we didn't talk a lot, but I got a great relationship with him. I was so excited to have him back, and like even if you remember when he came back, everyone was fired up about that, everybody. So when I watched it just from me sitting there, I was not — there was some people texting me. I remember somebody texted me, ‘Man, you're the smartest guy in the room.' I wanted to write back like, ‘F— you, man.' I don't feel that way. I feel this thing we built got damaged. I'm not putting any blame on anybody. Sorry, super Switzerland.”
“I'm not putting any blame on anybody. I just hated seeing that. Because as the company grows, and I hope it continues to grow. I hope people remember the mission in the first place and why we were there. If you bring in people who don't know the mission, then things like that can happen. I'm not saying he didn't know the mission or anything of that nature, but I was just bummed out. That's how I felt, I was bummed out. because I have — you win the title, it's a feather in your cap. You win the Royal Rumble, it's a feather in your cap. Building an alternative wrestling promotion is definitely a feather in the cap. I don't want that to be erased. I don't want that to go away. Plus, there's not as many jobs in wrestling as people think. There's about 1,000 people who work there structurally, infrastructure and talent. I'm proud of them. I want to make sure they're able to feed their families and that was a situation that was so big and heavy. I don't think it was helpful. I don't know, maybe you could make it helpful. Maybe you can do something with it. That's how I felt. No heat on Punk. No heat on Matt, Nick, Kenny, or Tony, I was just bummed out when I saw it. That's not how we envisioned it. The spirit of ‘All In,' if you ever lose the spirit, you're lost. I think the spirit was gone in that moment, doesn't mean can't get it back, but it was just a bummer.”
Is Rhodes correct? Did Punk lose that All In spirit, if he had it at all? Or is the former AEW EVP simply romanticizing a business that has say over 1,000 people's lives and livelihoods? We may never know… unless Punk returns to AEW, of course.
