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2022 WRESTLERS LEAVING COMPANIES THREAD (Releases, FAs, etc...)


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10 minutes ago, mystman said:

Look, I don't want to get into a big argument over this, and I'm not a Cody apologist. But could someone tell me what he was supposed to do? He obviously wasn't happy in AEW. ROH just got bought by them. TNA, NWA, and New Japan all have some working relationship with them. Where was he going to go? MLW? CYN?  Hell he can't even go to DDT now. Is he just supposed to quit wrestling, or work somewhere he wasn't happy? 

all well in good, this is why you don't burn bridges. Or make it look to the fans that you actively despise the competition if you really don't.  He is either a sell out or phony. Take your pick.

Nobody forced him to do the over the top entrances with the sledge hammer, the false pedigrees, the theme song lyrics.   It's different if someone like Omega or the Bucks left because they never really went out of their way to bury the competition only to come running to them the minute he was "unhappy"  

Had Cody not gone out of his way to bash WWE any chance he had (and hell he created the chances himself) I would have 0 issue with him leaving if he isn't happy. I left my last job not because of money but because I don't want to work with assholes. I told the company owner that very sentence the day I left.  I wasn't happy I left.  If I am not happy now I won't go back to the former company even if they offered me 7 figures. It wouldn't happen.  If Cody wasn't happy at AEW he is damn fortunate WWE took him back after the stuff he pulled.  Imagine if they didn't where would he go?  

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16 minutes ago, mystman said:

Look, I don't want to get into a big argument over this, and I'm not a Cody apologist. But could someone tell me what he was supposed to do? He obviously wasn't happy in AEW. ROH just got bought by them. TNA, NWA, and New Japan all have some working relationship with them. Where was he going to go? MLW? CYN?  Hell he can't even go to DDT now. Is he just supposed to quit wrestling, or work somewhere he wasn't happy? 

Cody Rhodes, Big Japan Deathmatch Champion.

I'm kidding, he's far too young for BJW to give an extended push to.

Edited by Kropotkin's Beard
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24 minutes ago, mystman said:

That's brilliant! Then, 20 years from now when she debuts, Liberty can call herself "a daughter of a plumber"!

Wrestling is a flat circle.

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56 minutes ago, paintedbynumbers said:

all well in good, this is why you don't burn bridges. Or make it look to the fans that you actively despise the competition if you really don't.  He is either a sell out or phony. Take your pick.

Nobody forced him to do the over the top entrances with the sledge hammer, the false pedigrees, the theme song lyrics.   It's different if someone like Omega or the Bucks left because they never really went out of their way to bury the competition only to come running to them the minute he was "unhappy"  

Had Cody not gone out of his way to bash WWE any chance he had (and hell he created the chances himself) I would have 0 issue with him leaving if he isn't happy. I left my last job not because of money but because I don't want to work with assholes. I told the company owner that very sentence the day I left.  I wasn't happy I left.  If I am not happy now I won't go back to the former company even if they offered me 7 figures. It wouldn't happen.  If Cody wasn't happy at AEW he is damn fortunate WWE took him back after the stuff he pulled.  Imagine if they didn't where would he go?  

Thank you!  I'm not begrudging Cody for making money, I'm begrudging him for being a phony.  Everything from that Tweeted list of aspirational indy stuff he wanted to do, designed to look like aw shucks he just loves wrestling but in reality all those bookings were already done before he posted it, to the throne smashing and all the other performative "one of us" acts of rebellion, is what I begrudge the guy for.  I know it's quaint to call out fakes and sellouts in our cynical age but fuck it, I'll be quaint.  The guy is a phony.  Good for him that everything worked out because Vince loves nothing more than re-signing guys who shit on him, but he's still a phony.

Edited by Technico Support
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Opposite take: I love Cody. Any man who will take 10 whips to the back, jump off an (AEW tall) cage, and go through an overly burning table, just for the passion of loving wrestling, has my respect. And those early AEW babyface promos were some of the best work he's done. It just didn't work after that.

Edited by Leonidas
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When I was younger I used to begrudge punk bands or other bands for "selling out." Now that I'm older, I realize that was horrendously stupid and short sighted. However, Cody falls into this grey area where I don't know what to think about the guy. I brushed off the tattoo at the time because I didn't think it was a big deal, but it clearly was bigger than I imagined. Then there's all of the anti-WWE stuff and wanting to take WWE head on, which the other EVPs didn't want to do, and now he's back with WWE.

So to be faaaaaaaiiiiiiiir, I don't think Cody imagined he would be in this spot again. I have a feeling he was going to be with AEW for life until he was left with less and less creative control. So he did what was best for his family and lifestyle and ultimately, that's fine. I just think it's going to be a little awkward to walk back a lot of the stuff he's said and done since the moment he was released from WWE the first time. Although, who knows, it could be as simple as saying it was just business and no one appreciates someone willing to fight like Vince does.

In the end, Cody probably did the best thing possible for his career. He did the Christian thing, which was to show Vince he was wrong and that he could be a main eventer, he could be a draw, and hell, he could even help start up and run a wrestling company that is on WWE's heels and along the way he was completely shameless in wanting to stick it to WWE. That's the weird sort of crap Vince appreciates and makes him like someone even more.

Now, do I think this winds up in him being protected like Roman or Brock? Not a chance. Like others said, he has a window where he's something special for three months at the most until he's a JAG and going 50/50 with Sami Zayn or Kevin Owens or whoever. Then after another 9 months to a year he'll get a push to a championship when he's not even special anymore and no one cares because that's just how Vince operates. 

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I don't think Cody sold out because I think he's always been a sellout, if that makes sense. I don't mean that negatively, either. He's always been out to make a lot of money. I have zero problems with that.

It's just that when you present yourself as the guy who's going to break the throne and take down that evil company up north, you have to expect there to be some raised eyebrows when you immediately go back to working for them.

@Craig Hbrought up the idea of punk bands and selling out. I just don't think that applies to Cody. He's not Green Day. He's Nickleback. He never had "cred". He's always been a major label guy.

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It just seems like it is the nature of the business. Eventually they all come back for the money. Who hasn't sold out? This is the business that brought us jean shorts Bret beating up Vince. Hell, even Mr. I left the business in 2005 and finally returned had a stint on WWE Backstage. 

What are the instances of someone not selling out? 

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26 minutes ago, JohnnyJ said:

It just seems like it is the nature of the business. Eventually they all come back for the money. Who hasn't sold out? This is the business that brought us jean shorts Bret beating up Vince. Hell, even Mr. I left the business in 2005 and finally returned had a stint on WWE Backstage. 

What are the instances of someone not selling out? 

Did Savage EVER return to the WWE in any capacity after that 93/94 commentary run? That's the last "big" guy I can think of who left WWE and never returned.

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41 minutes ago, Krone Meltzer said:

Did Savage EVER return to the WWE in any capacity after that 93/94 commentary run? That's the last "big" guy I can think of who left WWE and never returned.

Only for THQ.

 

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39 minutes ago, Krone Meltzer said:

Did Savage EVER return to the WWE in any capacity after that 93/94 commentary run? That's the last "big" guy I can think of who left WWE and never returned.

He was also persona non grata for either Sleaze Thread reasons or because Vince was just that bitter over the Slim Jim stuff.

I'll go out on a limb and say CM Punk never returns unless the entire structure of that company is completely different. 

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2 hours ago, paintedbynumbers said:

Had Cody not gone out of his way to bash WWE any chance he had (and hell he created the chances himself) I would have 0 issue with him leaving if he isn't happy. I left my last job not because of money but because I don't want to work with assholes. I told the company owner that very sentence the day I left.  I wasn't happy I left.  If I am not happy now I won't go back to the former company even if they offered me 7 figures. It wouldn't happen.  If Cody wasn't happy at AEW he is damn fortunate WWE took him back after the stuff he pulled.  Imagine if they didn't where would he go?  

Oh no. Cody lost your respect. And your respect is so very important to him. Yawn.

You seems to always frame your comments in a way how everything is relative to your personal feelings. You are one out of seven billion (just like me). Your specific gripes with how he handled his business are yours. They don't extend to everyone who watches wrestling (just like mine don't). Cody bashed WWE. Just like Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, Ric Flair, Sting, and probably two dozen others. It's what you do when you're fighting a war. Rollins verbally disparaged NJPW on Twitter and said WWE is the best in the world. Reigns has done similar things when asked about AEW. Would you fault them for jumping ship when their contracts are up to? Because you shouldn't.

Time ebbs and flows just like feelings do. Hogan probably hated Vince for those Huckster skits. But then WCW died and WWE was his biggest money making possibility. So his feeling changed. That doesn't make him a bad human being. (His recent comments on race sure do, but I digress). Cody is just doing what a businessman does. He took in all the options and picked the best financial option for his family. Who cares if he broke a throne with a sledgehammer? Or anything else. That doesn't bar him from making money with WWE if they are willing to have him back.

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8 hours ago, TheVileOne said:

He made himself into AEW's Jeff Jarrett. As Kenny Omega said, no one cared more about making it AEW vs. WWE than Cody Rhodes. That was his schtick.


And nothing has helped AEW grow more. A "war" brings tension and excitement to a competition. How's Impact doing by playing nice with everyone? Basically irrelevant. And the only time they were relevant is when they brought in Hogan and tried to make it into a "war". AEW would still be good TV without all those shots at WWE. But wouldn't feel as real. When WWE extended Smackdown that one episode to go head to head with Rampage Grand Slam and TK did Danielson vs Suzuki on Youtube against Smackdown, that shit was fun. And that was purely TK making that call, not Cody.

Another point that doesn't get mentioned enough, is the age of the talent. The majority of guys hot in this "war" grew up during The Monday Night Wars. They got to experience that shit in real time and feel how much fun it was. Don't sleep on the fact all of the "war" stuff makes the whole industry more fun to be in. Not to mention anytime there's a "war" the money goes up for the boys. There's literally no negatives to creating that vibe.

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I don't particularly care for the guy, but I don't understand the criticism of him. People seem to be mad that they got worked by a professional worker into believing that he was something he wasn't. All these accusations of being "fake" and "phony" don't make a lick of sense in the world of wrestling. Isn't that exactly what the business is? It'd be like getting mad that Hogan didn't actually take his vitamins and say his prayers. How dare you lie to us Hulkster!?!

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2 hours ago, JohnnyJ said:

What are the instances of someone not selling out? 

I seem to remember some old timer sticking to his guns. Was it Sammartino? Or Superstar Billy Graham?

Edited by Swift
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17 minutes ago, Swift said:

I don't particularly care for the guy, but I don't understand the criticism of him. People seem to be mad that they got worked by a professional worker into believing that he was something he wasn't. All these accusations of being "fake" and "phony" don't make a lick of sense in the world of wrestling. Isn't that exactly what the business is? It'd be like getting mad that Hogan didn't actually take his vitamins and say his prayers. How dare you lie to us Hulkster!?!

This is all correct. If trying to manufacture a reason for people to get invested and give a shit is a hanging offense, we won't have any wrestlers left. People getting on Cody for committing the sin of being effective as a professional wrestler are about as backward as it gets. 

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LOL so we should expect all wrestlers to always be working us and just constantly lying, even in a non-wrestling context.  Got it.

I literally alluded to Cody representing this old time conman mindset and said I'm glad he's out of AEW.  I don't think it's "backwards" to hope for better of wrestlers, in 2022, to not be carny dirtbags. 

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22 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

LOL so we should expect all wrestlers to always be working us and just constantly lying, even in a non-wrestling context.  Got it.

I literally alluded to Cody representing this old time conman mindset and said I'm glad he's out of AEW.  I don't think it's "backwards" to hope for better of wrestlers, in 2022, to not be carny dirtbags. 

Not sure if you should expect it, but you're not owed or entitled to any level of baseline sincerity. Showbiz people don't need to be real with you, I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings. 

I also don't think wrestlers letting you in on it necessarily makes them "better," nor do I think Cody's done a single thing that a viewer should take as making him a "dirtbag." That level of hatred borders on gross and irrational. Bums me out to see it. 

Edited by John from Cincinnati
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It's always funny when people get castigated for viewing their jobs as jobs. Usually either creative or athletes and I guess wrestlers are both. And Cody would certainly say he was both. 

A segment of fans hate athletes that don't play for "the love of the game ." I think that's definitely true of wrestling fans.

On a  basic level, Cody is just trying to make money in the family business, no different than Jeff Jarrett or Vince himself.

Being about the money is just him being his father's son. 

 

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