Cody Rhodes has discussed his favourite AEW match while sharing his thoughts on Brodie Lee on the Talk Is Jericho podcast.
In a conversation about Lee’s win over Rhodes for the TNT Championship, Rhodes said:
“I wanted to do Vader/Inoki, and I wanted to do it for a while but no one fit the profile. So Vader/Inoki, they build up the first-ever match between Inoki and Vader…they build up Vader basically for New Japan. As my understanding of it, Vader beats him in 2 minutes. It’s one of the only times, the Japanese audience is almost a near riot.”
Rhodes, who ranked number 3 in the ITR Top 50 for 2020, went on to discuss the similarities he saw in another modern classic:
“Vader/Inoki was kind of re-done with Brock/Cena from SummerSlam. Where, about 2 minutes in, as a wrestler, you’re like “they’re going home.” I thought no-one’s done that, it would be shocking. It would be the right call because in wrestling anything can happen on any given night and we have to consistently remind (the audience) of that. Also, (Brodie Lee) is near 7 feet, he’s a legit super-heavyweight who’s mobile…it would make all the sense in the world that that could be the thing, that could be the piece that puts me out.”
The 2-time former TNT Champion then revealed Brodie Lee’s thoughts when presented with the idea:
“He didn’t believe me…I said I don’t wanna do anything and he was all about worried about it.” Lee then stated that he wanted to hook Cody’s leg on the pin, to which Rhodes replied: “don’t even hook my leg, absolutely disrespect me, absolutely own me, eat me alive.”
Following the match, Lee’s Dark Order beat down Rhodes’ Nightmare Family; Rhodes shared who had the idea for the culmination of that chaos:
“Arn (Anderson) added, as Arn does as a great finish man, added the cherry on top. The moment with Anna (Jay) at the very end with Anna and Brandi choking her out…I thought it was a great way to end the show.”
Cody Rhodes, who reclaimed the TNT Championship from Brodie Lee in a dog-collar match, then discussed how highly he rates the match:
“I’d absolutely say it’s my favourite match in AEW. It’s my favourite one I’ve had, and I’ve wrestled (Jericho), wrestled Dustin, I’ve had a really fun outing with Darby. I just loved how I felt…My favourite thing in that moment was when he covered me, I could feel in his chest how excited he was. I could literally feel, like, that was a big deal. He had some words for me right before he covered me and that felt so good as a wrestler. I feel just as good had I won in this fashion as I do in this moment watching him do everything he said he wanted to do.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Rhodes outlined his plans for a huge AEW UK tour in the future and the original plans for Brodie Lee’s debut.
Credit: Talk Is Jericho