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What's the story?
AEW was officially formed earlier this year and will have their first ever pay per view, Double or Nothing in May. Beyond that, they are also rumored to be in line for some kind of television deal, but details are still unknown at this time.
If nothing else, this has caused a seismic shift in the pro wrestling landscape and put several people on notice.
Unfortunately for WWE, they were one of the people put on notice by the emerging company and have now had to go on the defense.
In fact, between WWE locking down any and all midcard card talent and doing focus groups to try to find out what fans want, it's pretty obvious that WWE is scared.
In case you didn't know...
Interestingly enough, Triple H also took a subtle jab at the rival company during DX's acceptance speech into The WWE Hall of fame and didn't hold back on what he really thought of them.
In fact, he called them a pissant company that McMahon would one day buy off just to fire Billy Gunn.
With that being said, Cody Rhodes didn't say anything immediately after the comments were made and as time went on, some wondered if he ever would or would just ignore them completely.
The heart of the matter
Rhodes finally opened up on the matter during an episode of The Road to Double or Nothing and had some pretty choice words to WWE.
"You mean to tell me some pissant bodybuilder making every match a No DQ, meandering around the crowd, throwing the jib cam at his opponent, compares with a Kenny [Omega]- [Kazuchika] Okada match? Or some bra and panties spectacular can match up with what the women did last Sept. 1 [ at All In]? Or even Dwayne ['The Rock' Johnson], as electric as it was rhyming and raising, was it really better than what [CM] Punk said sitting on that stage?" remarked Cody.
He also discussed the true representation of his match against his brother Dustin Rhodes, calling it the death of the Attitude Era.
He then claimed that WWE's programming hasn't been pushing the limits lately and that the company is scared of AEW finally putting their feet down on the gas pedal.
"And this notion of brother vs. brother, of 'Natural' versus 'Nightmare,' it's all very marketable, it's all very romantic, albeit not very accurate," Rhodes said.
"What's accurate is that this match is generation versus generation. I am not here to kill Dustin Rhodes, I am here to kill The Attitude Era. My entire lot, my whole class of peers has been compared to these gilded late 90s to early 2000s [wrestlers] for over a decade, and it's an utter sham. Sure, you paved the roads for us, but gosh you set the speed markers at 35 because you are terrified of any of us putting our f—ing foot down on the pedal."
What's next?
AEW is set to air their first ever pay per view, Double or Nothing on May 25th, 2019 and will hopefully be moving to television sometime in October.
Whether they actually do or not remains to be seen and will depend on what kind of deal they come up with, but the tools seem to be there for AEW to be a huge success!
