Cody Rhodes recently conducted an in-depth interview with ESPN regarding All Elite Wrestling where he spoke about how the company came about and more.
How AEW landed Chris Jericho:
“I guess Chris is kind of that wrestling outlaw. When he came to be part of All In, I think he saw that we had a bigger picture in mind. For several years now the business has literally been changing, and it’s just ripe for this movement and this revolution and ultimately this alternative, which is what we’re trying to be. He had the foresight to see that. The next piece of that puzzle was he brought us onto the Chris Jericho Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager cruise and the magic continued. I think he’s capable of making magic, and I think he wanted to make it with us.”
How he met Tony Khan:
“I’ve known Tony for a long time. People are just discovering that Tony is a diehard wrestling fan, on the tape-trader level of wrestling fan. We also bond over the fact that we are huge Trekkies — he and I are obsessed with Star Trek. He used to come to WWE events. He’s actually in the front row in New Japan Pro Wrestling, he’s in the crowd at Long Beach cheering, you can find him if you look back on it. So I knew him in a friendly manner long before this ever came to fruition.”
How AEW came about:
“A lot of what happened stemmed from me, Matt and Nick [Jackson, The Young Bucks] doing All In. We have just the time of our lives and get a lot of great what I guess I call “consumer feedback” from fans for Starrcast, Conrad Thompson’s event, and our event All In. It just seemed to be this kind of renaissance, Woodstock for wrestling, and I just had the idea of, “What if we did this more? What if we did this quarterly or what if we potentially did this weekly?” Everyone said you can’t do that, and I don’t believe that.
“The wrestling I grew up on was that every week. It filled your soul up with the goodness. And Tony was somebody who we discussed initially investing in a sequel show. Once I was no longer under contract to Ring of Honor, which was about two months before Final Battle, that’s when we started to get into the weeds a bit on that and talk about the opportunity that exists out there.”
ESPN