Cody Rhodes provides full insight into the infamous chair shot to the back of the head spot at AEW Fyter Fest.
Fans were left stunned at AEW Fyter Fest when Shawn Spears waffled Cody with a steel chair to the head, leaving Cody with a cut that required 12 staples as the lip of the chair caught him in the back of the head. Chair shots to the head had been taken out of wrestling over the past decade as more has been learned about the long-term effects of concussions. The incident garnered plenty of attention for AEW and kick-started the rivalry between Cody and Spears.
Appearing on AEW Unrestricted, Cody detailed his thought process behind the spot and everything that went into that moment.
"It's entirely my fault, what happened. The whole thing. The scene, when I came (to the) back. I did not have a concussion, but I was shell shocked. I saw [Jon] Moxley and Tony Khan just ripping Spears to shreds. I hadn't seen that side of the boss and I hadn't see that side of Moxley. It was cool to see it because he cared about my health and the product. I could see him pantomiming to Spears on how he was supposed to do it. He was wrong because I'm the one who told Spears to swing from the side. The last words I told him were, 'swing for the fences," he said. "Here was my objective, and I want people to understand this; wrestling is violent. If we're going to be held to the same standard as TV and film, which some people like to do because we have a comparable reach. Then, if Captain America can be swinging his shield around and hitting people in the head with it, no one is crying 'head shots.' No one is blaming this modern generation for whatever the hell they did with Mick [Foley], Rock, [Ken] Shamrock. That's not our fault. I wanted to take chair shots to the head back for the boys. I wanted to do it, safely."
When discussing his plan for spot and how to do it safely, Cody detailed how he thought things could be put together and Tony Khan even volunteering to take a chair shot the night before the event.
"The plan was, we do a chair shot to the head, but we gimmick the chair. Gimmicking the chair, it would have been nice to have a person who knew how to do that. The plan was, the seat of the chair would be sanded until it was a cookie sheet, a cookie sheet can't hurt anybody, but it sounds good. [Security guard Charlie Ramone] was going to sand it and I wanted to see it. I wanted two of them in case we needed to test one," explained Cody
Aubrey Edwards noted that she saw two chairs in Cody's office with one being heavily taped to signify that it was the gimmicked chair.
"The night before the event, Tony Khan was adamant that Charlie hit him with the chair. I was like, 'No, you're not taking a headshot. We're sanding this thing down and we can't dent it.' Perhaps we should have. I still wouldn't want Tony to take it, but he was banging it against his own head. 'See, it's nothing.' What I told him was, 'We get a lot of heat for what goes down. Say to whatever sources you want to and tell them that it was a gimmicked chair.' In the fiction and the actual product, we're not addressing it, but off the record, he is addressing it, so no one could get mad. We should've coordinated the plan with everyone. Matt and Nick Jackson, I left in the wilderness on this. Kenny [Omega], I don't think I said a word to about this. That's where the term 'gimmick chair' came from. In the end, he did sand the chair down. It was sheet metal and beautiful. My advice to Spears to swing from the side, and he did swing for the fences, the top bar is what ate the back of my head. I knew it went bad, but it was a great moment. Matt and Nick went on the scrum and said it was gimmicked, Tony said it was a pilot error, and it became a big thing and 'we're never going to do chair shots to the head again.' My attempt to get chair shots to the head back for the boys, but safely, was a failed attempt. Maybe it never should have been attempted. It was a big lesson for me. Would I do it again? Of course," said Cody.
Tony Schiavone did point out at the end of the story that Chris Evans uses a stunt double in Captain America, so it's not quite the same as Cody taking the chair shot himself.
Chair shots to the head have remained rare in wrestling, but AEW has continued to find ways to produce "blood and guts" matches, including Wednesday's bloody Bunkhouse match between the Natural Nightmares and The Butcher & The Blade.
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