On Cody wanting to have a more meaningful role backstage:
“So Cody wanted to be I think more involved with being seen as sort of an equal to Tony and it became clear over time this was Tony’s company, and you know, the EVPs had their titles and The Bucks and Kenny by all accounts are happy with their role as EVPs and they have some latitude.
Kenny gets to work with the women and The Bucks get to kind of do their thing with their friends and get to show off their ring style. Tony is pretty hands off and open to their ideas about certain pockets in the company that they have. But I think Cody did desire to be something more substantial.
Danielson and Punk changed that dynamic a bit and I think Cody knew from experience if you’re not the top paid guy, you’re not going to get pushed like the top paid guy, you’re not gonna have the leverage that comes with that.
He was as much if not more than anyone the founder of this movement of AEW and Brandi put out public statements on Twitter about this and said nice things. I have not heard that there was a big blow up or that there’s a ton of hurt feelings with Cody and Tony. But, obviously, you know, it’s business.”
But the bottom line is Cody was not successful with this character and was stubborn or steadfast in wanting to be portrayed a certain way. And you can see it in that statement about the community outreach aspect of it.
So when you’re trying to manage Brandi’s aspirations, and you’re also wanting to be paid a certain amount, and to match or exceed others, and at the same time the crowd is rejecting the character that you’re steadfast in wanting to continue portraying, it can become a problem.
Then you have WWE that is willing to pay millions to acquire a co-founder and EVP of your top competitor and make some waves with that going into WrestleMania season. I’m not surprised.
People were really surprised. I heard some of the EVPs were surprised about this, because it seemed like things had gotten better with everyone after there had been some tension. But if things got better, it might have been a loveless marriage in that sense. There wasn’t fighting but there wasn’t great chemistry and collaboration.”
On how Cody was backstage in AEW:
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