“I did lose a very prominent free agent” – AEW President Tony Khan opens up on Cody Rhodes Returning to WWE

AEW President Tony Khan recently spoke  Cody Rhodes returning to WWE last weekend at WWE Wrestlemania.

After much speculation, one of the founding members of All Elite Wrestling, Cody Rhodes made his return to the rings of WWE. The recently completed event of WrestleMania 38 marked the comeback of the wrestler who was previously popular for his character of Stardust among the fans and viewers of WWE. For the first time, Tony Khan of AEW spoke about the recent developments that took place. 

‘I did lose a very prominent free agent’

Speaking to Sports Illustrated Tony Khan said,

“I did lose a very prominent free agent, but we’re debuting one tonight in Samoa Joe. In the past 30 days, we’ve also debuted Toni Storm, who was incredible last week in her win against The Bunny, and Jeff Hardy, one of the biggest stars in wrestling. We have a lot of excitement happening here, and that’s our focus.”

Tony Khan addressed the departure in the media before the Revolutionary pay-per-view wherein he said,

“I don’t want to get too deep into it. Because a lot it’s personal between me and (Cody) but I tried to reach a longer agreement with him beyond what we had for the option years. And it sounded like at one point I think that we were going to. Honestly, and when we couldn’t settle on it, the last thing I want to do is keep somebody here who isn’t gonna want to be here. So it didn’t look like we were gonna get a longer deal done.”

“I would’ve loved to have done it. And, I have a lot of respect for him but when we didn’t come to terms on that it made it pretty clear where we were gonna end up on things,” he added. “That being said, I said nothing but respectful stuff about Cody and I’ll continue to.”

‘I chose to remain silent about my departure from AEW’

Speaking to Variety, Cody Rhodes had explained his side of the story. Before his return to WrestleMania 38 Cody Rhodes said,

“I chose to remain silent about my departure from AEW and I’m going to keep my word on that. There’s no shoot interview. There’s no nefarious tale that’s going to be told. There were all these different theories and none of them are correct. I mean, there were things about money and creative control.”

“They were printed as fact. It’s been a very difficult two months to see that when the reality is it was just time. It was a personal matter and we couldn’t move past it. I have nothing but respect for Matt [Jackson], Nick [Jackson] and Kenny [Omega].

I’m rooting for Tony Khan. His name is going to be in the history books as someone who helped to bankroll and support this entire alternative and revolution that AEW became but for me, it was just time to move on. I get an opportunity at my dream, I get another chance at it. And you really can’t leave any stone unturned with that.”

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