DDP Says AEW Wouldn’t Exist Without Cody Rhodes, Talks Rhodes’ 2016 WWE Exit

Diamond Dallas Page recently spoke about Cody Rhodes’ decision to leave WWE in 2016 and how his steps led to AEW’s creation. DDP spoke with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp and talked about how Rhodes’ steps changed the business. You can see some highlights below:

On Cody’s Hall of Fame speech for his father’s induction: “That was the money. Well, it’s easy for him to talk about his dad. When you grow up with ‘Elvis meets John Wayne,’ and you respect the way you do, it’s easy for him to come off with that, but it was just, it showed right there. If you didn’t know he was money, right then, you weren’t watching that interview.”

On Cody making the right decision to leave WWE in 2016: “100%. That’s what you have to do in this business. You can’t be afraid to walk away. You can’t be afraid to walk away from it when it’s not serving you. He would have never gotten past that mid-card, ever. He would even fall down lower, and he knew that. So, ‘It’s time for me to bail. Go show these guys they were wrong,’ and they paid a lot of money to get him back, a lot of money. So it’s time to get paid. He got paid.”

On Cody’s importance to AEW: “There is no AEW without Cody. Without him making that statement, ‘I think me and The Bucks, and Kenny can draw 10,000 people,’ and [Dave] Meltzer getting on him and saying, ‘Now, Cody, you’re a little full of yourself. Maybe 4,000,’ and Cody said, ‘I’ll take that bet.’ That was all set on Twitter, and now he’s gotta back that up, and they did. They backed it up, but then the booking that he was doing early on was really awesome to watch.”