Cody On Triple H Texting Him After ROH World Title Win, Not Using "All In" To Help With WWE Return
As previously noted, former ROH World Champion Cody recently spoke with Edge and Christian on E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness. Among many other things, Cody discussed his All In event selling out in less than 30 minutes, how the show came together, how he has been treated by ROH, and whether winning the ROH World Championship was vindication for his decision to leave WWE.
Interestingly, Cody admitted during the podcast that he did not think All In was going to sell out.
"I did not think it was going to sell out! I mean, like, the character, and I'm fairly confident, but this is also first-time promoter. I understand the concept of, 'let me lay out this card,' and what I think would be cool, and what I think fans want to see, but the other stuff is really just wild in terms of the amount of things you have to cover and whatnot. And I projected low. I thought 4,000 for the first month. And then, after that, we'd roll matches out, we'd push our sponsors. We have a budget for advertising and we didn't touch that budget, so now we can buy some fireworks or something!" Cody added, "I am very excited that it did sell out in the time it did and everything. Really, I'm flattered by it. I'm motivated by it as well. You paid us. We want to make it something incredibly special. It may only be the one time. There may only be one All In, so we've got to make it good."
Cody revealed that All In came together as pro wrestling pundits doubted whether ROH could attract enough fans to fill a 10,000-seat venue. Also of note, 'The Golden Power' shared that even overseas venues were considered for All In in case of contractual issues with ROH.
"We did a small venue to start that [War Of The Worlds] tour last year and it was the beginning of four days of what we call, 'Bullet Club Parties' where it was a sea of Bullet Club fans and merchandise and the meet-and-greet lines were out the door. And then, at the end of the show, we would try to send them home happy and the sentiment was so? just strong. The feeling was so [strong]. I didn't want to leave. And the whole year ended up being like that in terms of these events, that we seemed to have captured a fanbase. And then, [Dave] Meltzer said his thing about Ring Of Honor not being able to draw 10,000 people." Cody continued, "I walked in the locker room and I said to Matt [Jackson], I said, 'I know that you've thought about doing this big show. Let's just google it. How much does this building cost? Let's look it up.' And in the meantime, Gary Juster, who works with Ring Of Honor, who I've known since I was a little kid, I said, 'let's get his ass in here. Let's get him on the phone. Let's see how much these buildings cost and see if we have the resources for it and let's do it. And if we're not allowed to do it because we're domestically exclusive to Ring Of Honor,' I said, 'whatever. Let's look overseas' and we did. We looked in Dublin [Ireland]. We looked at the west coast. We looked everywhere."
Apparently, Cody had to convince The Young Bucks that he would see the All In project through and that he was not using the event as a means of returning to WWE.
"The Bucks had the idea of doing this and I think that I came in with a little bit of motivation to do so." Cody said, "and also, I let them know right away, 'I'm not going anywhere. I'm not looking for this to be my springboard back to WWE. I love WWE, but I want to try this. I want to try what we're doing.' And I think that they needed to hear that they had a real partner. And, man, since then, it [has] been fun."
When asked how Cody has been treated by ROH, 'The American Nightmare' indicated that he has been treated with class from the beginning and he feels loyalty toward the organization.
"Everything they've done since [debuting for ROH], for me, they've been firing on all cylinders." Cody stated, "they had a 30% growth increase in their company through the year in terms of houses and dollars. They had a great year. And the management they have, Greg [Gilleland] and Joe Koff, man, they've treated me incredibly, incredibly well. I definitely have a sense of loyalty to them because of how wonderfully they've treated me."
Cody acknowledged that he feels 'vindicated' insofar as WWE did not see their future here in Cody.
"Yeah, no, vindication is one of my biggest words. I think the greatest revenge you can have is success and it's more honest than anything else too. I mean, I could tell you all of the great things about WWE, but there is also at the end of the day, WWE didn't think I was top and I thought I was top. And, to me, these types of moments have made me feel vindication and you kind of get that, 'look at me now – I told you so' type [of reactions], but I'm wired to where I don't know why when these things happen, I don't know, the world is not enough. I keep wanting more."
Additionally, Cody noted that even Triple H texted him to congratulate him for winning the ROH title.
"The coolest feeling in the world is to have text messages from people in our industry who don't have to text you. They don't. And somebody like Triple H telling me, 'congrats for winning the Ring Of Honor title.' it makes what we do real. My dad told me, 'the only real thing that we do is the world title.' And there [are] lots of world titles, but that one validated it for me and I was really happy."
Special thanks to Ring Of Honor for the video above. If you would like to check out the podcast, click here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: E&C's Pod Of Awesomeness