From the November 6th, 2019 episode of AEW Dynamite, Cody (not yet Rhodes again) cuts a promo for his upcoming Full Gear 2019 match with then-AEW Champion Chris Jericho stipulating that if he doesn’t win the title, then he will never challenge for said title again. For those who don’t know, Cody would lose said match against Jericho and would never get another shot at the AEW World title ever again.
It’d be a stretch to say that this promo “changed things.” At the time, Cody was simply trying to avoid the pitfalls of management putting themselves in hot angles. Jeff Jarrett as NWA Champion in TNA when he owned the company comes to mind. HHH as multiple time WWE Champion and getting favorable treatment after marrying into the family. Just about any mom-and-pop promotion who opts to book family as the top stars because you know they’re never leaving… allegedly. So this is Cody eliminating himself from that discussion and he’d go on to have a decent TNT title run before things fell off the wayside for a variety of reasons.
Cut to a few years later and Cody Rhodes left AEW for WWE. And despite a couple hiccups here or there, Cody’s WWE run FAR eclipsed anything he was doing in AEW. He even got to win the WWE title and finish that story.
Would any of this have been possible had Cody not cut this promo? Perhaps… perhaps things would’ve turned out the same and Cody still would’ve left for WWE to bring about a new era to that promotion (among other factors, of course.) But considering that the Young Bucks have had multiple tag-team runs and even Kenny Omega got a decent AEW World title run to his credit… maybe Cody jumped the gun in this case.
Rewatching this promo after everything that has happened… one of the comments said it best; this does hit differently now with hindsight in mind.
dtm666 