Cody recently appeared on ESPN’s Cheap Heat and here are the highlights:
On what grade he would give AEW Dynamite so far: “I would give it an A. I’d say four of the five shows, I would give an A+. I only say that because the execution is the main thing, we have to execute and we have this long form plan, and we had been planning this for quite some time, and it’s a lot more traditional booking vs. writing, and with traditional booking, you’re going backwards from these major events, so I have to stop being a fan on a regular basis when it comes to Dynamite itself, when it comes to TV, I’m honored everything that happens. I’m honored that I have a chair for myself in the go position, that I have my own headset, I’m honored that I have my own office, all these little things, I have to stop caring about, and just say, ‘Ok, cool, that’s great, now let’s validate why these things exist.’”
On if early AEW was emphasizing spotfest wrestling too much and not prioritizing story enough: “In the early gestation period or whatever, especially because we started with the big events, the PPV events, and then we worked into an episodic television show, I never got too heavy-handed in what I like, and what I like is old-school, Southern wrestling, I like character profiles, I like variety pieces, I never got heavy-handed with that because Kenny [Omega] has his outlook on the women’s division, and Matt [Jackson] and Nick [Jackson] have their outlook on the tag division, Tony [Khan] oversees it all, and I know this is going to sound almost cheesy, and forgive me, but I just got off the phone with one of our talents and said this exact same thing. Above all of that, your opinion, my opinion, the grid we have in front of us, I think AEW needs to be fun. It needs to be a party. And if unbelievable, high-spot, fast-paced, Lucha Bros style, insanity gets the crowd up on its feet, I’d rather have the crowd standing on its feet than us pushing a narrative we’re hoping they link in to. Versus, ‘Hey, they did like that in the moment.’ So I have a very open mind, because I think that’s the buffet. I think Matt and Nick, and Kenny and Tony, everyone has these different outlooks, and Eric Bischoff is the person who told me about the wrestling buffet, and it has never not left my mind. I just want to make sure we check every box, and that includes boxes for fans, my favorite opinion of a fan is a fan who has never been to a wrestling show before, what did you like? And it’s always been these quirky things. ‘Oh man, you really liked Orange Cassidy? Ok cool.’ It’s different. Above all, in the early stages, we were just trying to have a lot of fun, and we continue to try and have a lot of fun.”
Listen to “The Fiend, Diperstein, and Zelina Vega” on Spreaker.
