“I Could Never Root Against Them”

Cody Rhodes gets asked his thoughts on AEW.

The American Nightmare famously helped star the rival WWE promotion, one he was a huge star in and captured its prestigious TNT Championship three-times. He departed AEW in 2022 and made his return to WWE, where he has since headlined two WrestleManias and is the new Undisputed WWE Champion.

Rhodes spoke about helping create AEW during a recent interview on Cheap Heat with Peter Rosenberg. Despite his departure, he says that he’ll always root for AEW to succeed, adding that the promotion would not exist without him.

The narrative changed a lot about my contributions to AEW. That was very disappointing. There were some people, I’m not going to say their names, they know who they were, who kind of tried to put some propaganda out when I left. There’s a quote in the Young Bucks book about how I was last to the signing. Me, Matt, and Nick are as close as ever. So glad I had them in my career and my life. If we are being honest, AEW does not happen without me. It doesn’t. With that in mind, I could never root against them. It’s like having a kid and they go off to college and they get a DUI or they get in trouble. I’ll always have that in my heart for them.

WWE and AEW have taken numerous shots at each other over the past five years. AEW President Tony Khan recently compared WWE to disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, who has since been convicted for his sexual assault crimes. You can check out the champ’s full interview below.

(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)