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The most interesting wrestling-related news story of 2019 was undoubtedly the launch of All Elite Wrestling. Not only did the premiere of AEW's Dynamite bring wrestling back to the famed U.S. cable network TNT for the first time in 20 years, but it proved that another arena-level wrestling company with a global audience was a possibility.
AEW's success not only proved to be fan-oriented, but the entertainment industry as a whole quickly took notice. In turn, last month it was announced that AEW was going to be on TNT until 2023, as part of a long-term contract extension; Dynamite had only been on the air for about three months at the time of this announcement.
One of the marquee stars for AEW is Cody, who is also one of the company's Executive Vice Presidents. He participated in a media conference call on February 18, 2020, and I had the opportunity to ask a few questions on behalf of Sportskeeda, as both transcribed and embedded.
On who is the most underrated talent on the current AEW roster:
Cody: "Underrated" is a dirty word to me, because sometimes it means "underpushed" or "undervalued." But if you're just taking the word at face value, I think the most underrated guy in AEW is Jack Evans.
Jack Evans walks around backstage super-casual, and I don't think that people are aware of what he's capable of in the ring, what he's already done in the ring. He's just special. He's somebody that I always say, "I'd like to get into singles with Jack." I don't know if he knows how much we value him, but Jack Evans is very underrated.
On whether he ever encountered "Macho Man" Randy Savage:
Cody: I had a lot of good interactions with Randy Savage when I was a kiddo, and I was a big fan of Randy and I always appreciated that he sounded and acted and was "The Macho Man" or "The Macho King" when he was around me... He called me "Codeman" and I loved that.
Even my mom for that WrestleMania that happened in Toronto, stood in for Liz because Randy didn't want anyone to know that Liz was going to be there the next night, when my dad had brought Liz and him as part of Sapphire's act for that mixed-tag with [Sensational] Sherry.
They had a good relationship, particularly because my dad was on the more dominant side of that relationship early on. But not unlike Ric Flair, as the Macho Man became a household name, the paradigm shifted. To see how they worked with each other, from when Savage was the kid in the stands at Championship Wrestling From Florida to WrestleMania and it's Macho Man's, is unique.
Bruce Prichard has a lot of great stories [about that], but if you know Bruce, half of it's made up, but it's all entertaining.
