>>12615297>For one, his white meat, babyface act was stale and he needed to freshen up. Whether this would have been through a heel turn or something else. I'm only gonna address this part because replied to my point specifically about me questioning why the audience satisfaction matters one and not the other. Brandi heat, favoritism going over to newest guy when Punk came back to the biz - that really doesn't factor into it that much, just pile ups on a wreck.
Let's be clear on one thing: There was no point in changing the character without renewal in sight and he wasn't getting renewal because he was stale as fuck trying to look like a big production star in show that rejects it - (and whatever Brandi heat brought to that mix yadayada)
if Cody was to continue in AEW and extend the contract it would have only been through doing a heel turn and it would have been good, for the AEW fans. Of course the image of "The american nightmare" was also Cody's big dream idea so he would not drop it or put it on hold for nothing less than big bucks, big program and quaranteed face turn.
But with the contract expiring, there was no point for him to doing it. He really didn't have good opponents to do it with either outside of teaming up with Punk to betray him and run a whole program, there wasn't really options - it wouldn't have been enough to just show up as Evil Cody against someone like A.R. Fox and still live in the Codyverse.
