When Cody Rhodes and AEW officially announced that they had parted ways, it immediately led fans to one conclusion and one conclusion alone: Cody Rhodes was coming home to WWE.
That's right, while Rhodes initially said goodbye to the first real wrestling promotion he worked for coming out of high school all the way back in 2016, touring around the indies and notoriously destroying the throne in one of his first appearances for All Elite Wrestling at Double or Nothing, it only felt like a matter of time before Dusty's son would return to the company that “made” him. A controversial take? At the time, maybe, but Rhodes' schtick grew incredibly stale with AEW fans who disapproved of his preferred style of storytelling, and when he made the now-ridiculous decision to swear off ever challenging for the AEW World Championship again in he lost to Chris Jericho at Full Gear 2019, his ceiling in the promotion was artificially set. Rhodes spoke on the matter himself on Out of Character with Ryan Satin back in April, as you can read below via a transcription from Wrestling News.
“We wanted a wrestling company brought to you by wrestlers, for sure, that's a huge part of the mission. But maybe it would have been better served for me at age 45 than it did at age, you know, 33, or whatever it was, I am just now entering the prime of my career. So to make political decisions, like boxing myself out of winning a world championship, those decisions, in hindsight, were not the correct decisions and what I should have been doing.”
So, when a return to AEW was all but crossed off the proverbial list of destinations, it felt like only a matter of time before Rhodes would make his way back to WWE, as a return to Ring of Honor, a trip to New Japan, or even a stay over in Impact would have been looked at as a downgrade. Fans started to look for clues, from social media posts to Reddit users trying to ID the “American Nightmare” at the airport, but the first “real” link fans held onto was the decision for Damian Priest to switch his finishing move from the Reckoning, which is basically a Cross Rhodes, in favor of a new signature move called the South of Heaven, plus his version of the Razor's Edge that used to be the signature maneuver of Scott Hall/Razor Ramone.
Was this a clue from WWE's higher-ups? According to Priest himself via a conversation with Fightful‘s Sean Ross Sapp, the answer to that question appears to be a resounding no.
Priest's diversified offensive moveset is about his evolution in WWE, not Rhodes.
During his tour de media availability at SummerSlam, Sean Ross Sapp asked a ton of questions about the best performers the WWE has to offer. He talked to Bobby Lashley about Mike Tyson, asked Jimmy Hart about his unreleased library of songs from WCW, and got in on the fun with Priest, too, discussing Judgement Day and his rapidly evolving offensive moveset. Did the return of Rhodes, SRS asked, actually influence his decision to replace the Reckoning?
“On my end, there was no thought as to why. I wanted to establish another move. That's all it was. There was no thought of I would lose a move. I just wanted to establish another move. How many guys would have multiple? The Undertaker, you have the Last Ride, Hell's Gate, Tombstone, and the Chokeslam. So for me, it was just I need more moves I can win matches with. I can't just rely on one move. So that's what it comes down to. So now, although I don't use the Reckoning any more, but I still have it. I have the South of Heaven, the Razor's Edge and contemplating throwing a submission in there. That literally was the thinking. I saw the stuff after and I thought, ‘Hey, whatever. Give it attention.' Whether it's right or wrong, it doesn't matter. People are talking about it and that's all we want is for people to talk about it. So it worked.”
Interesting. Now, for the eagle-eyed fans at home who have been watching Priest work since he was wrestling as “Punishment Martinez” in Ring of Honor, that isn't the only wrinkle the “Punisher” has worked into his offense. No, Priest has become a practitioner of the Broken Arrow, which is sort of like the tried and true Falcon Arrow, but with a throw added in for good measure. Here's what he had to say on the new move from elsewhere in the interview.
“So, Broken Arrow. That's the difference between mine and everybody else's. It's that pop-launch. Honestly it started because, at first, I just picked people up and tossed them around. T-Bar / Dijak used to do that. So I was like, ‘Huh, that's a keeper.' That's literally it. I wanted to do something that's done, it's simple, it's a known move, but I wanted to make it into my own. That's why I adapted the slam-throw into it.”
Well, there you go; even at 40, Priest isn't opposed to learning new tricks and further figuring out his character. Considering how he's been met with “What?” chants the world over from fans who aren't into his current presentation, that adaptability should prove valuable.
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