Posted in: AEW, Sports, TV | Tagged: aew, Battle of the Belts, recaps, wrestling

Sammy Guevara Finally Did What Cody Rhodes Wouldn't… or Couldn't

When the AEW fans rejected Cody Rhodes, the former AEW EVP did everything in his power to refuse to accept it. He lit himself on fire. He jumped off ladders. He cut long, rambling promos about America and CM Punk and pro wrestling legacies. Ultimately, when the fans still refused to cheer Cody Rhodes as the babyface he desperately wanted to be, he left AEW and rejoined WWE, where such an adversarial relationship with fans is hardly unheard of for some of the company's biggest stars over the past two decades. But at Battle of the Belts II on Saturday, Sammy Guevara did what Cody Rhodes wouldn't or couldn't, when he solidified his heel turn and won the TNT Championship from Scorpio Sky.

Sammy Guevara, at that time still a fan favorite in AEW, won the TNT Championship from Cody Rhodes in Rhodes's last match in AEW, at the Beach Break themed episode of AEW Dynamite on January 26th. Two months later, Rhodes debuted at WrestleMania against Seth Rollins, while Guevara, who had since dropped the title to Scorpio Sky and aligned himself on-screen with real-life girlfriend Tay Conti, was getting booed out of the building as bad or worse than Cody.

Fans had their reasons for turning on Guevara. For one thing, the flashy technician was always more personally relatable as a heel and/or in the Kitty Pryde role in Chris Jericho's Inner Circle faction. But perhaps more importantly, Guevara's on-screen and real-life relationship with Conti seemed to drive a wedge between him and the fans. Some took umbrage on behalf of Guevara's ex-fiance, to whom he had proposed in the ring the previous year. Others, a strong case could be argued, were simply jealous of two attractive people flaunting their relationship on television, which is to be fair why such behavior is more typically reserved for heel characters. Whatever the reasons, it was clear that the fans had fully turned on Sammy Guevara, perhaps even transferring their unresolved heat toward AEW's previous power couple, Cody and Brandi Rhodes, onto its new one, even as Guevara and Conti also took the Rhodes's place in the feud with Dan Lambert's faction.

The adjustment was swift. Ahead of Battle of the Belts on Saturday, The Men of the Year cut a promo directly addressing the crowd's booing of Guevara and Conti in weeks prior. And at the big event on Saturday, Guevara rewon the title as a full-fledged heel, capitalizing on multiple attempts by Conti to interfere in the match by finally delivering a low blow to Scorpio Sky to score the pinfall. In the course of less than three months, a babyface Guevara dropped the title, experienced a tidal change in fan reactions, and then regained the title as a heel, with a massive chorus of well-earned boos as a reward. Side note: poor Scorpio Sky, finally getting that heel championship run, only to be immediately overshadowed by the former babyface champion becoming a bigger heel and winning it back!

The difference between Sammy Guevara and Cody Rhodes is remarkable because, in some ways, both are portraying the same character: a heel who believes he's a babyface. In the short term, AEW fans will appreciate Guevara for bending to their will and giving them the heel turn they wanted. Meanwhile, in WWE, Cody Rhodes is getting the reaction he wanted, cheered by fans as a returning hero, and seems destined for a confrontation with Roman Reigns for the prize that eluded his father: the WWE Championship. And if fans do start to turn on Rhodes, history shows he could count on the support of management in resisting a heel turn by any means necessary, including censoring crowd reactions and pumping in cheers. How it will work out for both men in the long term remains to be seen, but it might well serve as the perfect illustration of the philosophical differences at the heart of both wrestling companies and their fanbases.

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