Cody Rhodes Addresses if AEW Will Have a Main Office, Explains Hiring Billy Gunn as a Producer

– WrestlingInc.com recently interviewed AEW talent and executive Cody Rhodes for its WINCLY podcast. Below are some highlights from WrestlingInc.

Cody Rhodes on how his knee is doing: “So, the knee is weight-bearing and it was weight-bearing right after surgery. I had a meniscus scope where they just dig out the cartilage, so that’s the pain, and the swelling, and the recovery is based off of how much digging they did in there. Which they did a lot because there was a little more damage than they anticipated. But I don’t have to wrestle until May, so, this is the perfect time to have ever gone under the knife. I’m lucky I have the time. I don’t like the crutches they gave me, and I fell at the office yesterday. So, I’ve been humbled by my own body but the scope went well.”

Cody Rhodes on an office for AEW: “My office is in Atlanta but the office for All Elite Wrestling is TBD because we don’t know. There may never be one because the four executive vice presidents are all over the place and in 2019, you may not need everyone to be in the same room. We talk every day. But yeah, my office is in Atlanta here, not far from where I live. It’s kinda the makeshift current AEW office, actually, because that’s the only business that gets done in there actually. So yeah, maybe we’ll just do it out of my place. Well, it’s a very nice place so I do encourage them. That’s where me and the AEW coordinator, Mike, that’s where all the Road To Double Or Nothing videos are filmed. So I encourage them to come to me.”

Cody Rhodes on a potential training facility: “I have access to a really good facility here in Atlanta…I have a really good facility that’s called the One Fall Power Factory that the AEW coordinator, Mike, he also is the coach there. It would be a long shot to do a feeder system versus maybe some sponsored trainees instead. Where they could go to the different schools because that to me – people don’t talk about how great OVW was near enough because we didn’t have four rings and Shawn Michaels teaching us.”

“But we also weren’t told that we had to love wrestling. You learned to love wrestling. You find like-minded people to go to the gym with, you watch wrestling with your friends, you weren’t just checking boxes. Not that that’s what they do but that’s why I like the idea of maybe some sponsored trainees instead. Ya Know, here’s four guys – and I know Matt Jackson has talked about doing something similar with OWE and China about maybe a bit of a trainee exchange. And that’s something that he could speak to, but yeah, I think maybe sponsored training more than a full time center. I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Cody Rhodes on bringing in Billy Gunn as a producer: “Billy [Gunn’s] accolades, they really speak for themselves. Billy was also a part of All In, and there were a lot of people at All In behind the scenes. Tommy Dreamer was another one. There was a lot of people at All In that were really helpful in the sense that they gave us a bit of an old school outlook. But they were fully understanding of what the product is now. We cannot go backwards. And some fans, I understand that they love traditional wrestling, how it was done in the territories, and that old school psychology – I totally understand that. And all that footage and all that history is available to you to watch and love. But the stuff that is entertaining people today isn’t necessarily that.”

“There’s definitely things that we can pluck from the past and use and put them out there. Ya know, what’s old is new. But Billy has that really, like – he’s got a foot in both worlds. And when we look at our coaches and who we might have as potential coaches, because we’re not gonna flood the room or bloat the budget with forty coaches. It’s gonna be very limited. But when we look at those coaches, we want them to be understanding of what wrestling is today with the insight on what wrestling was yesterday, and combine both. Especially when you’re trying to present a sport-centric wrestling show, which is the mission.”