Brandi wanted the match to continue as planned.
Prior to Brandi and Cody Rhodes announcing that they were expecting their first child, the direction of their on-screen back and forth with Shaquille O’Neal was building up to a match with Cody and Brandi taking on Shaquille O’Neal and Jade Cargill.
Red Velvet was slotted into the match due to Brandi being unable to compete. While making the media rounds to promote Rhodes to the Top, Brandi told That Hashtag Show that she was told the match involving Shaq could be held off until she returned but she insisted that it continue as planned.
You know, it’s a funny, it’s a delicate balance and thing with me. One thing, for me personally is it’s been very hard to have to — I didn’t get afforded to take a step back. I had to take a step back. One thing I remember in finding out I was pregnant which was a wonderful thing to find out, but it was at the peak, very beginning of a very important matchup that was going to happen in AEW involving Shaq. One thing that was said to me was, ‘We can wait. This match can wait until you’re back’ and it was very important to me that the match press on with or without me. It needs to happen and this is an opportunity for someone else to get in there and show everybody what they can do. So it’s the stories like that-that you don’t hear, you know? That I gave up an opportunity. I would have something great to come back to right now. You know, major thing to return to wrestle Shaq and Jade [Cargill] but instead, Red Velvet got to wrestle that because I said, ‘Let’s do this and I think that it should be Red Velvet and I think she’s got what it takes’ and then she showed us that and then from there, you’re seeing her in the main event of Rampage, an amazing show that’s just started to premiere here and you know, that is what it should be. Sometimes you do have to look outside of yourself to make a way for somebody else, and you know, it sucks to be the one to tell the story. I wish somebody else could tell the story and say, ‘Well this is what was done.’ Perhaps in the future that will be the case but I think a lot of times, people don’t look at it that way and it’s funny that you say, you know, ‘You guys are not on the show very much’ because if you look at anybody who has any adversarial thought about AEW at all, we’re on the show for 30 minutes of the one hour show. Every single week, it’s me and him talking over coffee for 30 minutes.
Cody Rhodes chimed into the conversation and discussed how his on-screen job in AEW now is to help put talent over. He brought up being connected to the likes of Preston ’10’ Vance, Ricky Starks, Darby Allin, Lee Johnson and Jade Cargill.
It kind of gives me goosebumps thinking about it [people seeing more of the behind the scenes in AEW via Rhodes to the Top] because today, the theme has been a lot of the people have been excited about seeing some of the younger stars and although what people see on-screen with AEW directly, I think there’s a Cody they imagine and then the Cody behind the scenes and really what my job is-is to put other talent over and that includes being tethered to the 10s [Preston Vance], the Ricky Starks, the Darby Allins, the Jades, the Velvets. Whether they like it or not, I always have their best interest in mind. Lee Johnson. I mean just, that is more my job than anything and that’s very hard as a wrestler to accept and step out and go, ‘Hey, it’s not about me here. It’s going to be about them in two years and three years’ and seeing that happen and Tony [Khan] book it, where our future is getting the spotlight, that’s huge. That’s ultimately what wrestling is supposed to do. Just keep it fresh.
Cody was in action on the 9/29 Dynamite as he and Lee Johnson took on Dante Martin and Matt Sydal. To hear POST Wrestling’s recap of last night’s Dynamite, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit That Hashtag Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
