New Headline: Cody Rhodes Serves Up Steamy Anger Tour in 'Rage' Rage Tour!

Cody Rhodes holds the AEW World Championship - AEW/Triller TV Cody Rhodes will be entering yet another WrestleMania as the WWE Champion this year, defending the title against Randy Orton as the vaunted "QB1" of the company. But there was a time before he had finished his story, when he had not won the WWE Championship, had not made his grand return at WrestleMania 38, and plied his trade elsewhere. There was a time when the man that serves as the face of the company had positioned himself as the beacon of the alternative.

And while no one will truly speak to why the circumstance changed, Rhodes was very much on his way to being the face of AEW. History will now speak of that time as a stepping stone on his way back to WWE, but for a time Rhodes was a founder and EVP to the first true competitor to WWE in quite some time, and went on to become a three-time TNT Champion. Though he would never be able to become anything more than that having lost a World Championship match against Chris Jericho at Full Gear 2019.

The stipulation set out that Rhodes losing would mean he could never challenge for the title again, and MJF threw in the towel for Rhodes ensuring that he lost. A striking parallel with Revolution this Sunday , as MJF takes on "Hangman" Adam Page in a Texas Deathmatch with the same losing stipulation applied to Page. So everything he did and could achieve with AEW was limited within months of its existence, and he was effectively banned from the main event picture.

Hindsight is 20-20, that much is true, but that does feel like a sore waste of the man who would eventually switch gears and become the face of modern wrestling with WWE. It also opens up an avenue for thought; what could have been if Rhodes hadn't lost against Jericho that night? Read more: How Did Cody's 'The List' Pan Out For Everyone Else?