Cody Rhodes Responds To Roman Reigns Dismissing AEW As Competition To WWE
AEW EVP Cody Rhodes was interviewed by SPORT1 in Germany. During the interview, Cody discussed how popular Bret Hart was in the country in the 1990s.
"When Bret Hart came to Germany in the 1990s, it was BeatleMania," Cody said. "The beautiful thing is then, WWF didn't know why. Now we have the data, we can determine and understand why someone is moving the needle."
Cody said that he felt that Bret was more popular in Germany because of his style of wrestling.
"I think, Bret was more of an athlete, he was presenting a more reality-based wrestling instead of the overly dramatic wrestling," Cody noted. "I love Hulk Hogan, I love the Ultimate Warrior, but Bret was providing more grit, grind and hard-hitting – and consistency. I think that was more respected in Germany. Hopefully when we come, we'll have a Bret Hart of our own."
It has been a busy time for Cody since he received his requested release from WWE in 2016. Cody almost instantly became a big star on the independent scene, and had memorable runs in NJPW and ROH before helping start All Elite Wrestling. Cody admitted that the popularity boost he received after leaving WWE was somewhat of a surprise.
"I don't think I expected it," Cody admitted. "The truth is: I am very honest to myself when it comes to my spot on the card. When AEW came to fruition, I was rising up and I was being greeted so generously by its fandom. But if you compare it to fishing: That's a bite and I'm not gonna let go of that.
"That's what wrestling is about. The beautiful thing about AEW [is that] everybody thinks that way, everybody wants to be at the top, but everyone's doing it the right way – by performance."
AEW got off to a hot start when it was officially announced this year. Roman Reigns commented on the new promotion this past August, stating that it would be "generous" to refer to AEW as competition to WWE. While Roman and Cody have had their Twitter spats in the past, Cody had only praise for the former WWE Heavyweight Champion.
"[Roman] is very, very smart, he has WrestleMania main event under his belt, he has incredible talent," Cody said. "I think at the time, a lot of people were ? I don't wanna say naive. People were turning away from it, but there's no turning away now.
"WWE's on a 49 year head start and I tip my hat for that. But what we're doing is to build upon what fans have been talking about for 20 years, what they want from a wrestling product and what perhaps wasn't delivered to them. We want to be the alternative. If that means stepping into competition, so be it. It's better to have competition, for me, for Roman, for everybody."
You can read the full interview at Sport 1 by clicking here.