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Tiffany’s AEW Take: Cody Should Be the One To Retire Dustin Rhodes

If the end is near for Dustin Rhodes, is Cody Rhodes the one to end his career?

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Cody Rhodes Dustin Rhodes AEW Double Or Nothing Edit

If the end is near for Dustin Rhodes, is Cody Rhodes the one to end his career?

On Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Dustin Rhodes, eldest son of the legendary Dusty Rhodes, took on Kip Sabian in the quarter-finals of AEW’s TNT Championship tournament. The stakes were high as Dustin had vowed in a voicemail that if he couldn’t beat Kip Sabian, he would retire. Dustin got past Sabian thanks to a little assist from Brandi Rhodes, who kept Sabian’s girlfriend, Penelope Ford from costing Dustin the match. The victory not only kept Rhodes’ career alive, but set up a potential hoss fight classic with the monstrous Lance Archer. However, the bigger story is the potentially bigger storyline that could be waiting in the wings: Another showdown with younger brother, Cody.

For those who don’t know, though I’m not sure how, Dustin Rhodes and Cody being brothers isn’t just for television, they are half brothers and they are half brothers with a somewhat complicated relationship and history that needs to be unpacked to understand what might be brewing.

The Rhodes Family Saga, Condensed… A Lot

Fathers and Sons

First of all, Cody and Dustin have the same father, Hall of Famer and Legend, Dusty Rhodes, however Dusty fathered Dustin and Cody and raised them at two very different points in his life. When Dustin was growing up, Dusty was a journeyman wrestler who traveled the world to entertain fans and support his family and raised plenty of hell in the process. It was a 300+ day a year job that kept him far from home, and away from his family much of the time, which resulted in a divorce and end to his first marriage. When Cody was growing up, Dusty had transitioned to a more backstage role and was semi-retired, which meant he had the time to actually be the dad to Cody that he hadn’t really been able to be for Dustin. Add in personal issues surrounding Dustin’s marriage to Terri Runnels, his struggle to get out of his father’s shadow, and the hugely controversial character of Goldust, and you have a pretty complicated family story.

Brothers and Rivals

It’s no secret that Dustin and Cody love each other, they inducted their father into the WWE Hall of Fame together, but it doesn’t take a psychologist, or a woman who slept through her high school psychology class (that would be me, BTW), to see that Dustin could be forgiven if he resented Cody. However, it could be said that Cody had his own reasons to resent Dustin. Dustin got the chance to establish himself as a star away from their dad, while Cody was never really allowed to be a star without the Rhodes name following him and the unspoken assumption that all his title runs were more because of Dusty pulling strings for him than because of his own talent. Every time Cody went to the ring, we were reminded that he was the son of Dusty Rhodes, something Dustin was largely able to avoid in his Goldust years. Though Cody has embraced his name and family legacy in recent years, that wasn’t always the case during his WWE run.

Over the years, the Rhodes brothers have spent a lot of time as enemies, with Cody going out of his way to embarrass his brother and father, and as allies, but the relationship seemed broken beyond repair after Cody went down the rabbit hole of his Stardust gimmick before leaving WWE in 2016.

However, in 2019, the brothers seemed back on the same page after Dustin’s departure from WWE and after a legendary, blood soaked, battle at the first Double or Nothing. Cody won, but admitted that he needed his big brother back, and since then, Dustin has been the bedrock of the Nightmare Family, as well as respected coach backstage to the AEW roster.

What Does This Have to Do With Anything?

Let’s go back to where we started: the April 22 edition of Dynamite. On this week’s ‘Road to’ episode, Dustin dropped the bombshell that he would retire if he couldn’t beat Kip Sabian, much to Cody’s clear distress. It was shocking, but also a very random thing to announce while wrestling is almost at a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since Dustin is experiencing a career resurgence. Of course, Dustin got past Sabian, but retirement was in the air and it begs the question: What is going on here? Here’s what I think.

Dustin Rhodes is as good in the ring as he’s ever been, but it’s becoming clear that he’s slowing down. It certainly looked clear against the younger, and much quicker, Sabian. So, it might be that that Dustin is aware of his limits and doesn’t want to end up like so many legends, barely able to move but still getting booked because of nostalgia of what he used to be able to do. Dustin doesn’t NEED to wrestle anymore, as long as AEW exists, he’ll have a job. There are many members of the AEW roster, particularly the women, who praise him as an outstanding coach. Which is where Cody comes in.

Tiffany Tries To Get To The Point

As of Wednesday, April 22, 2020, Cody and Dustin are in the semi-finals, facing Darby Allin and Lance Archer, respectively. IF they are both successful, and that is certainly NOT a foregone conclusion, we could be facing a new chapter in the saga of the Rhodes family: Brother against brother for the TNT title. If that happens, I can see Dustin deciding to make victory against Cody the make or break of his career. If he can’t beat Cody, he will retire.

Moreover, IF Dustin is serious about wanting to retire and focus on working behind the scenes of AEW, or needs time to recover from injury, the person who should end Dustin’s storied, controversial, and amazing career is Cody. It would open another chapter in the Rhodes Family Saga, and complete the heel turn Cody seems to be on right now.

However, if they go down that path, that doesn’t mean the TNT Championship will be involved. They could easily have Allin and Archer face off for the title and leave the Rhodes Brothers to work out their issues on their own, but since I think it’s long past time for Cody to be a champion of SOME kind in AEW, I hope the title will be in the mix in some way.

However this is decided, it seems clear that Cody and Dustin are headed for another collision, and one with even more at stake. If Cody is the one to end Dustin’s career, it would be a fitting end and certainly more interesting than a tournament match in front of no crowd.

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Opinion

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions

Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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@TheMindlessPod @PCTunney @ChairshotMedia

prowrestlingtees.com/TheChairshot – TONS of Great designs…MAKES A GREAT GIFT!

About Chairshot Radio Network

Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!

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Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE’s PPV/PLE history)

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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!

 MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)

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Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends

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Opinion

AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams

AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.

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It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.

At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!

#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)

r/Wrasslin - when did Brock lesner begin his farmer and cowboy gimmick and when did he stop doing the gimmick ? is it worth watching I believe it was 2021 but not sure when he stopped the gimmick
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?

First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.

Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.

That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.

#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)

10 Greatest Summerslam Entrances in WWE History - GameSpot
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.

Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.

The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.

As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.

So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.

#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)

Vickie Guerrero on Rey vs. Dominik Mysterio: 'I wish I was part of it' -  Cageside Seats
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.

I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.

Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…

Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.

Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?

About Chairshot Radio Network

Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!

 MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)

TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)

WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling) 

THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)

FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)

SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast

SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast 

CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS

Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends

Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5

Classic POD is WAR


Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!

All Shows On Demand


Powered by RedCircle


Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!
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