Rhodes flourishing as he brings All Elite Wrestling to Atlanta
When Cody Rhodes left World Wrestling Entertainment in 2016, having grown frustrated with the direction of his career following nine years, he bet on himself that he would be able to flourish beyond the walls of the wrestling juggernaut.
Nearly four years later, that bet Rhodes made on himself has breathed new life into an industry that has long been dominated by WWE.
On Wednesday night, the east Cobb native and Lassiter High School graduate will be back home as All Elite Wrestling holds its weekly “Dynamite” show at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
With Rhodes helping lead the charge on the air and behind the scenes as an executive vice president, it will be the arena’s most significant non-WWE wrestling show in almost 20 years, since the final months of Atlantabased World Championship Wrestling.
The homecoming show holds special meaning for Rhodes, whose late father, the “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, often commanded crowds in Atlanta with his son-of-a-plumber, commonman aura throughout the 1980s and ’90s at the sincedemolished Omni during the heyday of WCW and its regional predecessors.
“It’s romantic is the best way to put it, in terms of the circle of events, that I would have never predicted,” the 34-year-old Cody Rhodes said. “I wanted to be a wrestler like my dad. I didn’t know I would be on the management side of things. I didn’t know I would be producing talent, and I didn’t know I would be doing it in the building that kind of stands on the ashes of the Omni, because that’s where I fell in love with wrestling, watching him do what he did.”
After bouncing between a number of independent organizations following his departure from WWE, Rhodes took another bet when national wrestling columnist Dave Meltzer suggested that an independently run wrestling show would be unable to sell out a 10,000-seat arena.
Rhodes and the tag team of brothers Matt and Nick Jackson — the Young Bucks — took that challenge headon and devised “All In,” a wrestling show in suburban Chicago. Single-handedly organized and promoted by Rhodes and the Young Bucks, tickets for the show sold out in less than an hour, and an announced crowd of better than 11,000 filled the arena Sept. 1, 2018.
The success of “All In” set in motion the gears that led to the announcement of AEW the following January.
With the backing of the billionaire Khan family — Shad Khan and son Tony, owners of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars — AEW gradually built its roster. Rhodes, the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, who all share executive vice president titles, are veteran forces along the likes of former WWE stars Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley and Cody’s halfbrother, Dustin Rhodes. Complementing them is a crop of younger, less established wrestlers, including Maxwell Jacob Friedman, Adam Page, Nyla Rose and Dr. Britt Baker, a dentist by trade.
Since its October premiere, “Dynamite” has aired each Wednesday on TNT — once the home of WCW’s flagship “Nitro” on Monday nights. AEW has been going toeto-toe with WWE’s NXT brand, creating a Wednesday night wrestling war in the same vein of when WCW and WWE famously faced off against one another on Monday nights 20 years ago.
“He takes the family business very seriously, so he doesn’t reflect much on his accomplishments, but the state of wrestling in 2020 wouldn’t be what it is if he hadn’t stepped out and left WWE, and that’s not hyperbole,” said Rhodes’ sister, Teil Runnels-Gergel.
The top executives of the Atlanta Braves, Falcons and Hawks pitched legislation to legalize sports betting in Georgia Thursday at a luncheon sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club.
Derek Schiller of the Braves, Rich McKay of the Falcons and Steve Koonin of the Hawks said sports betting wouldn’t spur a direct windfall of revenue for their teams. Rather, the benefit would come from increasing fan engagement, they said.
“Somebody who bets on a game is 19 times more likely to watch it,” said Koonin, the Hawks’ president and CEO.
Sports betting is a relatively recent arrival on the legalized gambling scene. It wasn’t possible until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2018 struck down a federal law that banned commercial sports betting in most states.
Since then, 11 states have legalized sports betting, seven others have approved but are yet to launch sports betting and 24 states – including Georgia – are considering legalization legislation.
State Rep. Craig Gordon, D-Savannah, has introduced a constitutional amendment asking Georgia voters to decide in a statewide referendum whether to legalize sports betting.
A separate “enabling” bill sponsored by Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, one of the biggest supporters of legalizing gambling in the General Assembly, contains specifics on how sports betting would operate in Georgia. For one thing, betting would be conducted through cellphones and other mobile devices, since Georgia has no brick-and-mortar betting facilities such as casinos.
“The phone is where a lot of consumption is going on in the digital world,” McKay said.
Stephens’ bill also would prohibit betting on amateur sports, including college games. A portion of gambling proceeds would go toward education in Georgia.
The prospects for getting sports betting through the General Assembly this year are not encouraging. Georgia Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton, said last month that legalizing gambling is not a priority in his caucus.
Lobbyists for religious groups oppose legalized gambling in any form – sports betting, casinos or pari-mutuel betting on horse racing – as an immoral activity that carries hidden social costs including increased crime and gambling addictions.
But Schiller said gambling is already going on in Georgia.
“Sports betting is happening today illegally, and the state of Georgia is receiving no tax dollars for it,” he said. “It’s really found money that’s not happening today.”
Schiller also argued that legalizing sports betting rather than allowing it to go on illegally would give the state the tools to regulate the activity, including setting age limits and putting restrictions on the use of credit cards.