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This is not a tl;dr but:
You had to be there for the full run, there's too much to mention. The amount of goodwill towards AEW and Cody himself in 2019 was impossibly high, he was cheered like a golden god, the Prince of Pro-Wrestling, the Son of a Son of a Plumber. He had match of the night on AEW's first show and was essentially the face of the company and well known from his position in the Elite and what they did in NJPW and BTE. When Dynamite started the first big program was Cody vs Jericho (c) and Cody was more over than ever before. That initial run was all carried by Cody and Jericho (and later Mox). But Cody loses the title shot against Jericho and slips down the card as Mox starts to run red hot. Then Cody pulls the trigger on his MJF feud he'd been building silently for the past year. The build was kino and involved Cody being whipped like Christ himself by MJF and Wardlow. As this is happening Cody's wife Brandi is doing the single worst and most negatively received faction in all of AEW and turning all the fans against her. So much is happening that nobody notices or questions why Cody is no longer seen with his old Elite friends anymore, its like they are never on screen together. Huh? Weird. The build goes to Revolution 2020 where Cody puts MJF over and debuts his neck tattoo. This PPV is the MOMENT OF NO RETURN for Cody. It was all downhill from here. He had Downstait play his intro song live and they sucked and were roundly mocked, his tattoo was roundly mocked, and he looked like a bitch putting MJF over. Pandemic hits, Cody gets Tony to book a tournament and debut a new belt specifically so that Cody can win it and look heroic by beating new debut Lance Archer. Mike Tyson personally puts Cody over. People think this is a little cheesy and weird/jarring but try not to question it. It's the pandemic after all, they had to book something. Cody wasn't just using the company to make himself look heroic, right? Wrong. (1/3)
