Cody Rhodes: AEW's Women Have "Shown Out" While Under Pressure

A big criticism of AEW since day one was the lack of focus shown to its women’s division, but things seemed to have turned a corner, with a second women’s title in the mix, and more meaningful storylines away from the title scenes.

The efforts of the women’s division have not been lost on Cody Rhodes, who had nothing but praise for them during an appearance on AEW Unrestricted:

"I think our women's roster, the women in AEW, so much pressure is put on them,” started Cody. “When women have a main event, everyone wants to see what the rating is. When women sell a shirt, everyone wants to talk about the shirt. When women have an action figure, everyone wants to see what the price point is at. It's almost an unrealistic pressure. Every time that pressure has been presented, they have shown out. For an old curmudgeon wrestler… that's real change. I know it's probably tone deaf for a man to talk so heavily about women's wrestling, but to me, that's real change.

“There are guarantees on our show. You put Serena Deeb out there, you better have your working boots on or she will outwork you. That's genuine change and it's really cool to see. I'm at the school now, we have like five girls in this camp. It's not like back then there wasn't an example to look at, but now the pressure is on. It really is. I think there are a lot of male wrestlers who, behind the scene, were like 'ughh' who are kind of rooting against it, and I'm not saying at AEW, I'm saying in the general space of wrestling, and they need to hop on. It's happening, it's growing, it's building and it's really cool to see.”

H/T: Fightful