The Deaners (Cody and Jake) were recent guests on IMPACT Wrestling‘s Press Pass media call, and I had the chance to ask Cody about his history working for the promotion. Cody’s original run in 2009 included working with ODB and competing for the Knockouts Championship at No Surrender that year.
Cody talked positively about his memories working with ODB and said intergender wrestling has still come a long way since then. He said a lot of female wrestlers are putting on matches that are better than the men, and the athleticism has improved tremendously since then:
“I’ve thought about that a lot. I think when I was doing that stuff with ODB that was almost ten years ago. The world ten years ago was a lot different, and you only saw mixed gender matches if it was like you said, some kind of comedy thing or this really special attraction, where now—and it’s not necessarily a special attraction—a lot of the independent wrestling shows that I do and Jake does, there’s intergender matches on a lot of the shows so it just shows you how different the world is in terms of the viewpoint on gender equality, which I think it’s cool and it’s great. Especially when you have all of these female wrestlers now that, and I’m not ashamed to admit it—they’re putting on better matches than a lot of us guys. The athleticism of the girls in the business today is just astronomically better than it was a decade ago. It’s really amazing to see, especially the Knockouts that are on the roster right now. They can giv’er, they know how to go.
It is a lot different than when I was working ten years ago with ODB, but that being said—I loved everything I did with ODB in my previous time with IMPACT. She is awesome, she is an amazing wrestler, an amazing woman. We had a lot of fun with what we did, and I think because the times were different it was a special attraction. It was something that was totally different than anything on the card or happening on television at the time. I’m proud of the stuff I did with ODB. Yeah, it was goofy, it was funny, but it was supposed to be. It was supposed to put a smile on people’s faces and I still get people that come up to me today and tell me how much fun they had watching me and the stuff me and ODB did. Times have changed for the better, in my opinion, but that doesn’t downplay the fun that I had in the past with ODB.”
As a follow-up, another question posed to Cody asked if he thought he got enough credit as a ‘pioneer’ in intergender wrestling. Cody said they might not have been getting as much attention then due to how stacked the cards were back then, but he is proud of his work with ODB and challenges anyone to rewatch his older matches and not be entertained by it.
“No I don’t. I feel like myself and ODB don’t get enough credit for the stuff that we were doing back in the day. Me and ODB were tearing up it, and maybe we don’t get enough credit because there was so much good stuff going on on the show at the same time that maybe we got swept under the rug. People just thought ‘oh, this is just a comedy act’, but I dare anybody to go back and watch that match on pay-per-view that I had with ODB and not be entertained by it. We went and we tore the house down. Just listen to the crowd and how into it they were for that match, the commentators too. We were pulling out all of the stops and I challenge anybody—go back and watch that, and you’ll see a good match—a great match—that me and ODB put on together. I’m very proud of it and I don’t think we get enough credit for it, for the stuff that we were doing back then. It was not unheard of for a guy wrestling girls, but it definitely was not as common place as it is now. Being one of the guys that back then I could say I had a pay-per-view match with a girl, a competitive intergender match, with what’s going on today, I’m proud to say I was one of the guys to be able to do that.”
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