Before I answer, I think I should clarify for those who don’t watch WWE (yes this is partially directed to you @MarkP lol), that this is a small sample size as his run there was I believe 2.5 months. Also, of course AEW writing in general is much stronger then WWE’s, but there is this false narrative out there by mostly fans that don’t watch WWE that everything they do is bad. I agree, 90% is bad, but 10% is excellent, and their PPV’s are usually very good. Cody falls in that 10%.
With that said, to answer your question, Cody’s debut was spectacular. For me, Cody/Seth 1 is my match of the year, and this is the first year in at least a year or two that I have chosen a WWE match as my MOTY.
In the two and a half months that Cody was there, he was the centerpiece of Raw, he was protected, booked well, cut some great promo’s, and his next two matches with Seth were both excellent. The match at HIAC is going to go down as an iconic match (now if I remember correctly, you hated it. I get that, I respect that as I think you and I debated it, but the majority did not feel that way.) and he has a clear story going on right now.
From a kayfabe perspective, he is the guy that has the family pedigree that has yet to reach the mountain top. He struggled early in his WWE career, left, improved, came back, and is now aiming to reach the pinnacle and win that title his father never won. I’m sorry, but for me this is strong storytelling. I admit, maybe I’m a bit bias because I just lost my father so its a storyline I can connect to, but I am 100% drawn into that story and based on his crown reactions the crowd is connecting with him and this story as well.
In AEW he didn’t connect at the same level in the second half of his run. He was pushed as a babyface who fans were rejecting. He cut promo’s that went way too inside, and just felt different. Now of course the longer run in AEW means that there was more time for things to go wrong, and once he’s in WWE for 2-3 years, I may change my tune as if we are just looking at early AEW, its a different story. His match with his brother a couple years ago was MOTY (I didnt see it live, but I watched back a year later and was blown away), but what he has done overall in WWE IMO has been much stronger then his overall resume in AEW.
Sure Cody had a couple TV matches against Miz, but I don’t really care about that. I probably fast forwarded through them anyways. Raw and SD matches to me are the equivalent of importance to me as a match on Dark, there is no importance. But that’s more of a reflection of the piss poor writing of Raw then the usage of Cody. I understand the criticism of the three Seth matches as I do hate the trope of rematches-rematches-rematches in WWE, but I give this a pass because of how different and good all three matches were.
Again, I’m not saying WWE is better then AEW, or that WWE TV is better then AEW’s, I’m saying that Cody Rhodes specifically IMO has been used better in WWE then the way he was used in AEW and I believe that most fans (not all fans of course as wrestling is subjective) that watch both will feel the same.
