Eric Bischoff isn’t mincing words about why he thinks Cody Rhodes left AEW.
Cody Rhodes, alongside wife, Brandi, would shock the professional wrestling world when they announced their departures from All Elite Wrestling, this past February. After months of rumors and speculation, Rhodes would appear during night one of WrestleMania 38, and be revealed as Seth Rollins’ mystery opponent. Rhodes’ return would mark his first appearance for the company in seven years.
The jump from AEW to WWE has been praised and scrutinized by many in the world of wrestling and a man that’s appeared on both WWE and AEW programming, Eric Bischoff certainly hasn’t been one to stay quiet on certain issues in either company.
When speaking on his ‘83 Weeks‘ podcast, Bischoff gave his thoughts in the last several months in AEW, which by all accounts have been turbulent, to say the least, something Bischoff believes may have started following the departure of ‘The American Nightmare’, who according to Bischoff, was an ‘integral’ part of the company.
“Cody Rhodes – pretty integral part of AEW, pretty valuable asset within AEW. For whatever reason, he’s no longer there … It’s none of my business, but just look at the pattern, man, step back and look at fact patterns. Tony Khan and Cody Rhodes couldn’t see eye-to-eye; Cody’s gone.”
Bischoff would then liken Rhodes’ situation to the current issues between MJF and AEW President, Tony Khan. Bischoff claims that Khan’s rumored strained relationship with ‘The Salt of The Earth’ would be another case of a top star not seeing eye-to-eye with the man in charge of All Elite Wrestling.
“The MJF situation, which is still inexplicable to me, and I still keep hoping that this is all going to lead to something fun and interesting, but … the more time that goes by, the less effective an MJF storyline is going to be, in my opinion. I’m not saying it won’t be/it couldn’t be successful, and there’s ways to make it great, but I haven’t seen anything happen in AEW creatively that makes me think that somebody is really thinking ahead strategically and creatively. I mean, for a guy who wasn’t going to make the same mistakes WCW made, he’s compounding them.”
Following his victory over Rollins at WrestleMania 38, Rhodes would continue to feud with ‘The Architect’ until this past June’s Hell In A Cell premium live event where he competed with a torn pectoral muscle en-route to a third victory over Rollins. However, Rhodes would undergo surgery for the aforementioned injury and hasn’t been seen on WWE programming ever since.