AEW: In defense of Stardust and Cody’s portrayal of him in WWE

Before Cody Rhodes moves on to AEW All Out, let’s take some time to look back to his time in WWE. Specifically, his time in playing Stardust.

This Saturday, AEW airs its fourth – and arguably most hotly anticipated – Pay-Per-View to date, AEW All Out. As both a performer and executive vice president for AEW, Cody has come a long way from his days under WWE waters. Speaking of, he took some time the other day to reflect on his time diving in those waters, although, he did not speak of fond memories.

Instead, he spoke on his Stardust character and where he felt he went wrong with it.

In his own words, he said the following: “I don’t really blame him more than I blame myself. I worked hard, but at the time … not hard enough. To go from undesirable to undeniable took a lot sacrifices, reality checks, & most importantly I had to do the damn work. I don’t want to be anything less than the guy at the top.”

Clearly, the All Elite Wrestling executive blames himself for the Stardust character not reaching the height of popularity that either he or WWE hoped it would have. However, I am here to say that the problem was neither the character nor Cody’s performance itself. Not necessarily. Even more, I think the Stardust character was a little bit more appreciated than Cody gives it credit for. Stardust certainly had a fan in myself.

In 2014, Cody debuted the Stardust character on the Jun. 16 episode of Raw. The storyline being that Cody had mentally checked out of the ring following a string of losses alongside Goldust, not deeming himself a worthy tag team partner for his brother. After his brother struggled to find a replacement, Cody offered his handpicked option: Stardust, a modernized carbon copy of Goldust that somehow managed to be even more eccentric than the original.

Personally, I loved the Stardust character from the start, and I think a lot of people were fond of the character early on. Folks like Justin Labar, Ryan Dilbert and David Bixenspan for Bleacher Report all had fond things to say about the character and the man portraying him when Stardust first graced our screens. The general belief seemed to be that the direction helped freshen up Cody’s character, he played the role well, it all was leading towards an eventual Brother vs. Brother match, and then Stardust would revert back to being Cody Rhodes.

For awhile, that seemed to be the case. Gold and Stardust (still don’t know why WWE treated “dust” like their last name) racked up wins through the summer, won their second WWE Tag Championship together by the fall, lost the titles, and dissension grew by February, just in time for WrestleMania.

Except, we didn’t get the blowoff we all desired at Mania, or a significant match. After the breakup, we finally got Stardust vs. Goldust at Fastlane, where Stardust just won in under nine minutes. The match was spotlighted in a very “let’s hurry up and get this over with” fashion. WWE never highlighted any significance to the win

And that is exactly where the problem with Stardust lied: it had a ceiling and WWE went passed it. Fast.

Stardust, the character, was never designed to succeed as some monumental breakout star, nor should it have. The character was presented – or at the very least, appeared – to be both a progression and escalation to the Rhodes Brothers storyline and was expected to merely get Cody and his brother from Point A to Point B of their eventual feud. In that context, it works.

There was no reason to prolong that character past the Goldust feud and when it continued, be it at WrestleMania Ladder Matches or tag teams with Wade Barrett or even mini-feuds with The Green Arrow, fans lost interest.

It wasn’t because of anything Cody did with the character or even how WWE booked the character. The only thing that WWE did wrong was force that character to outlive its welcome. As soon as Stardust’s feud with Goldust ended, the only narrative that fans and critics like Aaron Bower for Bleacher Report were concerned with was when Stardust would be Cody again.

Fans had no problem with Cody becoming Stardust, but when it looked more and more likely that Cody could be Stardust forever, fans tuned out. They lost interest and stopped caring. It wouldn’t have mattered if Stardust became the first one to beat the one in 21-1, Brock Lesnar. His popularity would not have grown because fans did not want Stardust. They wanted Cody. They always wanted Cody.

It also didn’t help that his feud with Goldust ended so blandly, but that’s beside the point. The fact of the matter is that while neither Cody or WWE could have ever salvaged the character to reach passed its prime, he certainly made it entertaining.

Both in the ring and in backstage segments, Cody always made the most of his time as Stardust. He felt larger than life in ways that few Superstars on the roster felt at the time. Larger than life in that he had a character down pat and audiences understood it on sight. Stardust was this bundle of cosmic energy that was just fun to watch, especially early in its infancy when the character still produced intrigue and freshness.

No one was doing what he was doing at the time or since, not even Goldust. In that aspect, Cody did some creative things with that character. It was that kind of creativity that made me fall in love with the character at first sight and most importantly, it is that kind of creativity that has me excited for what Cody can do behind the scenes for AEW.