Cody Rhodes will always love AEW and says the end of his run was “horrible.”

Cody Rhodes says the end of his career in AEW was “terrible.”

Rhodes was asked about his time in the company in a recent interview with Chris Van Vliet. Although he was very hesitant to say anything negative about AEW, he admitted that his time there did not end well and there were “petty squabbles” behind the scenes.

“The end of AEW was really horrible, and people are going to write books about it later, and those stories are going to get out there, and then it’s all going to evolve into a whole new game,” Rhodes said.

He then compared his situation at AEW to the ending of the movie “The Dark Knight.”

“I’m not comparing myself to Batman, but there’s one aspect that’s really important. For some fans in the AEW fanbase, the story is important, that they didn’t want me, that they kicked me out. They need ‘he was evil,’ they need that story. They need me to be the villain. I’ve always been okay with accepting that because I have respect for (AEW) to begin with, because it was difficult to do the original All In, because it felt incredible to do Double or Nothing, because we were lucky that Tony (Khan) wanted to invest in that vision and he had a vision as well.”

“Regardless of all the petty arguments, I will always love it. I got to fight Brodie Lee’s last fight. I got to take people, young people, behind the scenes. I will always love it.”

Still, Rhodes says he always knew his time in AEW was temporary and that there was something else out there waiting for him.

“I just remember (AEW) fondly and I also knew I was leaving. I knew it was just one season. I knew it wasn’t going to last and I knew there was something bigger out there waiting for me. And I know that might sound negative to people, but it’s not. That’s the biggest prize in the wrestling game.”

“I absolutely respected my time there. I was able to hone my skills, you know, like at Hulkamania in the AWA, right before it came to WWE, it’s the same thing. The energy was there, the renaissance was happening, it wasn’t just corporate. It was all there and I just love it because I was able to hone my skills and when I got to WrestleMania and WWE, I felt like I came back as a complete package.”

After some convincing, Rhodes agreed to say something negative and “cream” in the interview. Rhodes noted that he didn’t like a section in the Young Bucks’ memoir “Killing The Business” that said he was the last person to sign with AEW.

“I thought it was awful that in The Young Bucks’ book they said I was the last one at the signing. Because that’s a big deal. Some of the AEW defenders don’t realize that they’re turning people off of their product rather than turning them on. That’s one of the things that people always say: Oh, he was the last one, he wasn’t that big of a deal to make. No. This guy here, who’s off camera, was the first person Tony ever met. And he met him as part of a vetting process for all of us. So yeah, I guess I was the last one and yeah, I had other thoughts and it’s not wrong at all what they said. Yeah, it’s not wrong, but I was there just as much as anybody else.”

The full audio version of the podcast is available here. At the time of writing, it is currently premiering on YouTube as follows: