Cody Rhodes Clarifies AEW TNT Championship Status, Says The Champion Will Be Unranked
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Cody Rhodes clears up any confusion fans might have about the status of the new TNT Championship.
Cody took part in a media call to promote Saturday’s AEW Double Or Nothing event, and WrestleZone asked him to clarify how the new title will fit into the existing rankings system. Earlier this week, Tony Khan responded to a fan question about where the TNT Championship will sit in the rankings when it is introduced. He said it will be a similar format, but the two male singles champions will be listed above the Top 5 each week.
Despite the “traditional” approach of having the number one ranked wrestler be the World Championship contender, Cody says neither title will be ranked and they need to see how things ultimately play out. He added that he doesn’t know if this would end up being a secondary championship or a “workhorse” title, but the 1-5 rankings won’t be title holders and both champions will remain unranked.
“To answer your question about the TNT Championship—when we got to the semifinals of the tournament, Tony Khan addressed everyone individually. The way it’s currently looking, the TNT Champion will not be ranked. He will be listed as a champion, where Jon Moxley is the World Champion, the TNT Champion will not be ranked. So those titles, we’re not going to look at them as ‘1 and 2’ and that’s because we want to see what becomes of the TNT title.
The only way we can do that, we can’t tell you here and now, ‘hey it’s going to be a workhorse title’ and we can’t tell you it’s going to be a midcard title. We can’t say any of those things because we’ve never seen it before. I’ve literally never seen the belt so it will grow into an entity of its own but I can say as far as the rankings go, the top five will all be non-champions. The TNT Champion and the World Champion will be unranked individuals. The top five does tend to skew towards ‘number one will wrestle for the World Championship’ but we’ll see how Tony takes that a step further as someone who is a firm believer in the sports-based ladder system that is involved with rankings, quality of wins, things of that nature. We’ll see where it goes but the TNT Champion will not be ranked.”
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