Arn Anderson was always by the side of Cody Rhodes on AEW television, serving as his coach throughout his career.
As one of the four executive Vice Presidents in AEW alongside Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson, and Kenny Omega, Cody would help with booking decisions and one of the biggest decisions he made was taking himself out of the AEW World Title picture by losing to Chris Jericho at AEW Full Gear 2019.
Speaking to Steve Austin on Broken Skull Sessions, Cody discussed how he balanced booking himself and not ruffling feathers among talent.
"Anyone I had issues with, in terms of because I was their boss, there is not really any heat that exists. I always tried to give and I was overly generous in my run. Had Dusty (Rhodes) been here, there were a few things he would have told me, but that would have been one for sure, because Arn was the one telling me on the side, 'Hey man, get some for you,'" he said.
A common complaint of Dusty's booking was that he was always at the top of the card and Cody didn't want to fall into that same criticism.
Cody continued by saying, "I did everything I could possibly do diplomatically to approach it...a lot of it was trepidation based on the fact that I had seen this already happen to Dusty. I had seen it. Okay, I'm going to be different. In hindsight, completely wrong concept. Dusty was on top because he was over. He was not on top because he was the booker. Is there synergy? Sure, but he was over. In the beginning (of AEW), there are not many guys who have this connection with the fans. Why would we forgo that? This is on me. This isn't on Tony (Khan), Matt, Nick or Kenny. These were my decisions. It was very hard for me to figure out. I needed someone in my life to say, 'Am I doing the right thing? Is this right? Is this the guy or girl we need to push forward?' I didn't have anyone. The closest I had was Arn at ringside, but I didn't want to bother him with such a deep deep question or make him overthink. It was a train that was flying through, we were having so much fun, it was a different environment. I know you [Austin] might understand, especially after WCW for you when you go to ECW and you're playing and you're having fun and you're around that more punk rock scene, that scene is amazing until you want to start playing something else. I had got there to where, the potency of me doing the honors, it went from doing the honors to just doing the job. The moment I'm doing the job, I've done plenty. Stardust happen. As Arn pointed out, I have to get some for me. He would, not chew me out because technically, I was his boss, but he would pretty much let me know. He was very helpful. Arn is always right. I probably should have listened to him far more than I was there."
Cody previously admitted that he didn't think he was mature enough to have a management position.
Asked for the bottom line on his AEW departure, Cody said, "The bottom line is that, it was my baby, it's growing up and people are having fun and it doesn't need me. Why I thought, it didn't need me...I'm not being totally honest, maybe it did need me, but here's what I needed; I did not want to be a gatekeeper wrestler. I did not want to be, 'This is Cody's thing, AEW.' Some people look at it that way, not everybody does. 'First program, they wrestle Cody, then they do Chris (Jericho's) podcast.' There's a whole meme about it. I didn't want to be a gatekeeper. At the time, we were getting these split reactions, which was very fun to experiment with because I had worked with Cena a lot on live events and to see how he did it. It takes a lot of discipline to know when you can give them something or you stick to who you are. I didn't want to be a gatekeeper."
Cody closed by saying that his decision also came down to winning the WWE Championship during his career.
Cody is set to face Seth Rollins at WrestleMania Backlash in a WrestleMania rematch. Fans can check out the current lineup for the show by clicking here.
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