Cody Rhodes Was Going To Face Wrestling Legend In AEW Before Leaving For WWE

Before returning to WWE at WrestleMania 38, Cody Rhodes faced off with the biggest stars of All Elite Wrestling such as Orange Cassidy, Penta El Zero M, and "The Exalted One" Mr. Brodie Lee. He also introduced future stars like Ricky Starks and Eddie Kingston before leaving. But one person that eluded "The American Nightmare" during his time in Tony Khan's company was Sting. However, that dream match was originally part of the plan.

During an interview with ComicBook.com, the "WWE Raw" Superstar revealed that he was meant to step into the squared circle with "The Icon" during the former EVP's meta heel run in 2021. However, Triple H and WWE made a slightly better offer.

"I was going to wrestle Sting," he confirmed. "I don't think I've ever shared that with anybody and nothing was on paper or anything like that. But I can say I got a tremendous offer from AEW creatively, financially, the full package ... It was a tremendous offer, but the offer wasn't right for me. What I wanted to get back to was the first goal that I ever had [winning the WWE Championship]. But yeah, that probably would've been the endgame. That's what had been discussed, was to get one [match] with one of my heroes, Sting."

While they never got to the culmination of the storyline, Rhodes and Sting did tease a future confrontation in December 2020. When the WWE Hall of Famer made his surprise debut in the promotion, he was welcomed by the "Grandson of a Plumber." The Stinger was slightly dismissive and finished the confrontation with a "See you around, kid." With the veteran supposedly wrapping up his career sooner rather than later and Rhodes focused on finishing his story in WWE, it seems like there won't be a payoff between the two competitors. But as they say, "Never say never." In the meantime, Rhodes will have to contend with Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam.