>>13083485Over the pandemic, Cody has a great run with the TNT belt, praised by all, gives Kingston and Starks the rub, puts over Darby although ruffled a few feathers by beating him early in the year. During this 2020 period Cody falls out of favor and we don't see much of him. He is no longer over, but he is still appreciated. This is when people start to consider The Cody Question in AEW because they noticed all his segments exist in their own universe and have zero crossover with the rest of the show, and that Cody is completely firewalled off from the Elite and has never interacted with them on screen for the majority of Dynamite. Also that Cody's segments tend to be indulgent and solely focused on making Cody look badass. Lots of pyro. Heavenly angels singing Cody to the ring. Cody refusing to come out of either tunnel and demands his own special unique Cody elevator entrance in the center of the stage. People start to see how jarring it is that so much resources are used in Codyverse for Cody while the rest of the show lacks it, plus Cody ruled himself out of world title contention so these resources of Cody looking cool basically lead nowhere and seem to exist only to placate Cody's ego. Cody's gear gets more superhero-like, his cape becomes unwieldy and enormous. His "baby gender reveal" segment is roundly mocked and derided. His feud with Ogogo is shit on by everyone, but I don't blame Cody for this one, I think he did great work in it, but his "I ended racism by banging Brandi" promo alienated lots of people and seemed pitched at a southern mid-80s audience rather than the current smark audience in which it fell flat. By the time they're back on the road, people were sick of Cody's shit and his first feud on the road was with QT Marshall, Cody's friend. This killed all enthusiasm for Cody in AEW and was seen as indulgent and a total waste of time. (2/3)
