Cody Rhodes, Jim Ross Discuss What They Want AEW To Be, Television Deal

Cody Rhodes and Jim Ross were recently interviewed by Variety magazine, after the recent news that AEW had signed a new television deal with Turner Sports. They discussed a number of topics, including what they want AEW to be, the leadership of the brand, wins and losses and more.

Below are some highlights from the interview:

On what they want AEW to be:

“The term people are using is ‘alternative,’” Rhodes said. “For many years throughout my youth and plenty of other fans’ youths, pro wrestling has been essentially just one company and that’s not really the case. I want to be the sports-centric alternative in the pro wrestling world and I think we’re on a good path to get there.”

On the leadership of AEW:

“AEW has a great opportunity because they’re not underfunded, the leadership has amazing vision, is young and youthful,” Ross said. “It’s probably the youngest group of decision makers ever in the business and I think that’s a pretty good statement because they’re going to be able to relate to that 18-34 demographic and 18-49 demographic very favorably.”

On competition with WWE:

“Competition raises everybody’s game,” he said, “It will raise the wrestlers’ game, the creative people’s game, everybody. Everybody feels a sense of urgency when someone is competing with them…Competitive means being profitable. It doesn’t mean, ‘We have to have this to beat the WWE.’ Our job is not to worry about what WWE is doing, not their TV clearances, not who’s in the main event, nothing. With a growing company there are a lot of growing pains. It’s a mix of creative and athletics and a lot of different things. Our focus has to be us, period.”

On wins and losses:

“One thing we really strongly want to present is wins and losses mattering again in pro wrestling. That takes more than the W and the L column,” he said. “We’re talking about percentage of times someone loses to this particular maneuver, percentages against somebody of this height, a whole by-the-numbers approach that really intrigues me. It’s not a cornerstone of AEW necessarily but it’s a great peripheral element we’re working on and that’s going to be exclusive to us.”

They also discuss what Rhodes learned from his time with WWE and more.

What do you think about Cody Rhodes’ and Jim Ross’ comments regarding AEW? Leave us a comment below, or post a comment on our Facebook page! Also, be sure to sign up for our newsletter and download our App from your favorite App Store!

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