The 2016 exit that started everything

Cody Rhodes sits at the top of the wrestling mountain right now. He is the current WWE Champion, the guy holding the gold that anchors the entire company. But back in May of 2016, the man was basically wandering the wilderness. After requesting his release, he had to prove he wasn't just Dusty’s kid.

Seeing current Cody Rhodes interviews pop up where he discusses that departure is like watching a war veteran look back at a battle they barely survived. He credits the fans for keeping his career on life support. Without that groundswell of support on the independent circuit, we might be watching him be a C-list actor on some network procedural instead of main-eventing.

The IWC divide is wider than the Grand Canyon

Go onto any wrestling subreddit or Twitter thread today and you will see the full spectrum of the human experience. On one side, you have the die-hards who treat Cody like a modern-day messiah. They believe his journey from Stardust to the top of the food chain is the greatest comeback story since Niki Lauda.

These folks think the 2016 release was a necessary sacrifice. They argue that if Cody hadn't been forced to grind in Japan and on the indies, he would have remained a mid-card novelty act forever. You can’t learn how to carry a locker room or a company-wide storyline while wearing a gold bodysuit and doing face paint.

Then you have the skeptics. These guys are the ones who think the self-congratulatory nature of the current Cody persona is getting a bit heavy. They point out that he had plenty of opportunities during his first run that didn't fully pan out. They see the “I built this” rhetoric as a marketing tactic rather than a historical summary of his career.

Why the debate is actually heating up

The intensity of this discourse isn't just about the man himself. It is about how we value loyalty in wrestling. Younger fans see Cody as the guy who helped start AEW before coming back to finish his story, which makes him a trailblazer. Older heads remember the rocky road he traveled and wonder how much of his current status is organic and how much is just WWE's massive promotional machine finally hitting the right buttons.

My take? The advocates for his journey have the stronger argument. You cannot manufacture the reaction he gets when his music hits. Whether you like his style or not, the guy put in the work. He didn't just walk back into the WWE with a smile; he earned his leverage by becoming one of the biggest draws in wrestling outside of Stamford. That kind of street cred is impossible to fake.

Where the story goes from here

Is there a critical perspective? Sure, his 2016 decision was a massive gamble that could have easily cratered his career. If he had failed in NJPW or ROH, we would be talking about a guy who burned bridges for nothing. The fact that it worked is a miracle of charisma and late-night booking sessions across a dozen different promotions.

His reliance on the fans to “prop him up” is a nice touch of humility, but let's be real—the guy is a machine. He knows exactly how to work a crowd and how to frame his own narrative. Sometimes the constant callbacks to his past are a bit much, especially when you are already the biggest guy in the room.

Ultimately, Cody Rhodes is the living embodiment of why we stay obsessed with this fake fighting circus. It is the only place where a guy can be a clown in 2015 and an industry kingpin in 2026. The 2016 version of Cody might have been confused and looking for a way out, but the current champ carries that frustration like a badge of honor.

Whether he is your guy or you’re annoyed by the constant talk of stories and legacies, you are paying attention. That is exactly what he wants. He turned a request for release into the foundation of a legacy, and that is a craft few in the business ever truly master.