Cody Rhodes discusses the signing of former Olympic medalist and once-rising boxing prospect Anthony Ogogo.
Back in October, Cody announced that Ogogo has signed a deal to wrestle for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) during a Southside Wrestling event, becoming the first former pro boxer to sign with the company. Ogogo has been a lifelong fan of pro wrestling and has been featured on AEW programming earlier this year.
During a panel at Starrcast IV, Cody, who is also an executive vice president for AEW, spoke about how Ogogo will start his wrestling training. Despite AEW not having a developmental center, Ogogo will be able to look towards Dustin Rhodes and Dean Malenko as coaches and mentors as he starts his wrestling journey in AEW.
"He's our first developmental signing. We don't have a developmental center but we have Dustin Rhodes, we have Dean Malenko, we have all these great coaches at our disposal who can train somebody on the road from the ground up and he's an Olympic boxer. We want people from all walks of life. It's great to just go to the independents and just cherry pick. That's what Bill Watts did and Dusty did and all the great promoters have done. They would go out and pick these great athletes. You can't force them to fall in love with wrestling, but in the case of Anthony Ogogo, he already fell in love with pro wrestling. So I wanted to announce him and selfishly, I wanted to make up for something that I had said at Starrcast where I said how great our UK deal was for AEW," Cody said.
Ogogo is perhaps best known for his run in the 2012 Summer Olympics when he won a bronze medal as a middleweight. He made his pro debut in 2013, winning his first 11 fights with seven of those wins coming by knockout. Ogogo then had his first title bout in the pro ranks in October 2016, but suffered a TKO loss to Craig Cunningham with the WBC International middleweight title on the line. After being dropped in the second round by Cunningham, Ogogo retired in the eighth round after complaining of blurred vision.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Fightful and link to our story.
