Cody Rhodes on Roman Reigns “Beef”, Finishing Fathers Legacy, & Vince McMahon Story

Summary

Podcast Summary: Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh Episode: Cody Rhodes on Roman Reigns “Beef”, Finishing Fathers Legacy, & Vince McMahon Story
Release Date: October 30, 2024

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1. Introduction and Early Wrestling Moments

Cody Rhodes kicks off the conversation by reminiscing about one of his most magical wrestling experiences involving The Undertaker:
“[00:00] Cody Rhodes: One of the most magical things I've ever seen is the Undertaker showing up to chokeslam the Rock...”

This moment highlights the blend of realism and spectacle that defines professional wrestling, setting the tone for the episode's deep dive into Cody's wrestling journey.

2. Vince McMahon’s Pitch and Financial Decisions

Andrew Schulz probes into Vince McMahon's methods of recruiting talent, specifically asking if Vince personally pitches contracts:
“[00:25] Andrew Schulz: Is it true that Vince flies to your house to pitch you on coming to WWE?”
Cody Rhodes confirms and describes the lucrative offer he received:
“[00:35] Cody Rhodes: 15 times more than what I had been making. I always say, like, it's a peck well spent.”

Cody reflects on the financial stability WWE provided versus his later risks when leaving the company.

3. Navigating the Babyface Role

The discussion shifts to the concept of a Babyface (a heroic character in wrestling). Mark Gagnon clarifies the term, and Cody Rhodes elaborates on his experience as a Babyface:
“[03:43] Cody Rhodes: Babyface, I mean, Babyface is a good guy..."
Cody explains how maintaining this role required connecting authentically with diverse fan demographics, contrasting it with his time portraying the Stardust character.

4. Departure from WWE and Independent Circuit Ventures

Cody details his challenging departure from WWE, driven by personal decisions and financial pressures:
“[22:57] Cody Rhodes: I needed the idea that I may never come back. I needed the idea that I may never come back.”

He outlines his transition to the independent circuit, emphasizing the creation of "The List" to challenge fellow indie wrestlers and mobilize fans:
“[28:00] Cody Rhodes: The List was I'd found when people got fired a lot.”

5. The Formation and Success of All In

Cody Rhodes narrates the inception of All In, a groundbreaking independent wrestling event:
“[35:33] Cody Rhodes: All In is the craziest. The original All In was an independent show.”
He shares anecdotes about selling out large venues rapidly, encountering unexpected challenges, and the emotional high of collaborating with wrestling legends like Rey Mysterio.

6. Collaboration with Tony Khan and the Rise of AEW

The episode explores how All In led to interactions with Tony Khan, founder of All Elite Wrestling (AEW):
“[46:14] Andrew Schulz: And Tony's a big wrestling fan.”
Cody discusses pitching their vision and how it aligned with Tony Khan's plans, contributing to AEW's emergence as a major wrestling promotion.

7. Wrestling Storytelling: Blending Reality and Performance

A significant portion delves into the art of wrestling storytelling, where real emotions intersect with scripted events:
“[85:40] Andrew Schulz: But what is the move where he puts on his shoulders?”
Cody Rhodes emphasizes the importance of authentic fan connections and how moments like WrestleMania main events create lasting impressions by blurring the lines between reality and performance.

8. Interactions with Wrestling Legends and Personal Growth

Cody shares heartfelt interactions with legends like The Rock and Randy Orton, highlighting mutual respect and professional camaraderie:
“[98:55] Andrew Schulz: Explain what happens when the Rock comes in. I can't believe we've jumped over getting...”
These moments illustrate Cody’s growth from a WWE talent to an influential figure in the wrestling world, balancing legacy and personal ambition.

9. Reflections on Wrestling’s Evolution and Future Prospects

In closing, Cody Rhodes reflects on wrestling's evolution, the importance of physicality balanced with storytelling, and his aspirations for continuing to shape the industry's future:
“[162:56] Cody Rhodes: I think I went to a place in my mind and maybe I was feeling really positive...”

He underscores the significance of family support and personal responsibility in sustaining a successful wrestling career, aiming to inspire the next generation of wrestlers.

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Notable Quotes:

• Cody Rhodes on Vince's offer:
  “[00:35] Cody Rhodes: 15 times more than what I had been making. I always say, like, it's a peck well spent.”

• Cody Rhodes on being a Babyface:
  “[03:43] Cody Rhodes: Babyface, I mean, Babyface is a good guy.”

• Cody Rhodes on creating "The List":
  “[28:00] Cody Rhodes: The List was I'd found when people got fired a lot.”

• Cody Rhodes on All In success:
  “[35:33] Cody Rhodes: All In is the craziest. The original All In was an independent show.”

• Cody Rhodes reflecting on WrestleMania moments:
  “[85:40] Cody Rhodes: And that was a really beautiful conversation I had...”

• Cody Rhodes on family support:
  “[125:11] Cody Rhodes: I think I would tell her because I remember I went to Waffle House with my dad when I finally told him...”

Conclusion

This episode of Flagrant offers an in-depth exploration of Cody Rhodes’ wrestling career, from his foundational experiences in WWE to his pivotal role in establishing All In and influencing the broader wrestling landscape through AEW. Through candid conversations and personal anecdotes, listeners gain valuable insights into the complexities of professional wrestling, the balance between legacy and innovation, and the enduring impact of authentic storytelling.

Transcript

[Cody Rhodes]

One of the most magical things I've ever seen is the Undertaker showing up to chokeslam the Rock. In the moment, I'm laying in the corner, so I see this man roll in the ring like a wild animal, but then no one sees this. He looked over at me and just went. And as soon as he winked, I kid you not, the lights went out and he. And I thought, like, he's magical, you know? Did anything go wrong? Everything.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is it true that Vince flies to your house to pitch you on coming to wwe?

[Cody Rhodes]

He scribbled on a piece of PA the amount of money the contract would be for and just slid it across.

[Andrew Schulz]

What was it?

[Cody Rhodes]

15 times more than what I had been making. I always say, like, it's a peck well spent. I kept my jacket on the whole day. And I remember Michael Hayes, he asked to see it. I started to unzip my jacket a little bit, and he goes, no, no, save it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Did you feel like you were spearheading it or do you feel like there was other.

[Cody Rhodes]

I need, baby.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to flagrant. And today we are joined by the motherfucking champ, man.

[Cody Rhodes]

Cody Rhodes is in the. Yes. Yes. Okay, thank you.

[Andrew Schulz]

As I was saying to you before the pod, you know, we are. We are guys that were very much wrestling casuals. Okay. In my younger life, obviously, there are certain waves that you couldn't escape it, but it wasn't like I grew up here in the city. It wasn't like I felt ostracized if I wasn't completely locked in. Vince Dot comes out. It's, like, mind blowing. It's one of the most amazing things that I've seen on tv. Like, it truly incredible. I feel, like, left out. I feel like I missed 20 years of reflection of American culture through wrestling. And I think it really portrays wrestling as incredibly highbrow. And a lot of times the people that don't watch it, I think, think it's lowbrow. The people that do watch it understand it for the story and this reflection of culture. And I think the doc, like, smashed them together.

[Cody Rhodes]

I love that you referred to as high brow.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

Because in terms of pro wrestling, sports, entertainment, however you look at it, whichever generation you popped in or if you were a fan, if you weren't a fan. There is a reason that I wear a suit everywhere I go. There is a reason I try to represent wrestling at the highest level. It's because having my dad in it. Yeah, that was a unique conversation as a kid with, hey, what does your dad do or when you meet their parents, what does your dad do? And my dad told me, I feel bad. Even when he told me this, even at a young age, I thought, no way. But he told me, he goes, hey, if you want to tell people I'm a salesman, that's okay. And I thought, like, no, no.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, because he thought you might be embarrassed.

[Akash Singh]

Well, just people would judge people.

[Cody Rhodes]

The judge, like, not everyone says highbrow. So when I try to engage with people or meet people or even the classic on a flight. What do you do for a living? I want to make sure they leave and they're not thinking. Like, it's not the best example, but they're not thinking macho madness all the time. Like, I'm not sitting in the gym, not sitting there snapping into slim dips. Like, that's all awesome and wonderful. And it was, for the time, amazing. One of the greater perform ever. But I want them to understand that it is a. It is a very large business.

[Akash Singh]

If it makes you feel any better, you know what Imagine made me realize that was when I saw your WrestleMania going crazy on Twitter. I started watching the last five minutes of it. My brother broke down the whole story. My brother's a big wrestling fan. And I was like, oh, this is some of the greatest storytelling I've ever heard of, period.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. I want to get into, like, your whole full story, because that's kind of insane how it's culminated. But there is one thing that I want to, like, fast forward and ask you about. There's this term that we learn when we're watching the doc, and everybody probably already knows this, so a lot of the parlance I'm going to use is going to seem, like, pedestrian to you, but to us, you know, we're learning about it.

[Cody Rhodes]

Quite all right.

[Andrew Schulz]

So Babyface, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Are you the first unanimously supported Babyface since Hulk Hogan?

[Cody Rhodes]

I'm knocking on. I think that's wood. I've been very lucky.

[Andrew Schulz]

But can you maybe even describe what that means?

[Cody Rhodes]

Babyface, I mean, Babyface is a good guy. Babyface is a good guy. Heel is a bad guy. Those two terms are usually used pretty correctly. Some of the other terms, you'll feel that it's always good being a casual fan, because some of the most hardcore fans, they'll start throwing these terms around and they're, no, that's not the use of it. We don't talk that way. But babyface, good guy. I've been very lucky that something about my return set in with all the different demographics in A way where there was not. There's usually a. A good chunk of fans who rally against the babyface as well. I like the bad guys. Something happened, and I'll give him, the first person who really let me in on it, that this is wild. There's no one going against this. This is wild was a hall of famer, Mr. Paul Heyman, who, without giving me credit in a moment, gave me a lot of credit. He said, you've opened the door for traditional babyfaces to come back.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's. I was apparently a post Stone Cold or whatever. Like an edgy Stone Cold, even.

[Andrew Schulz]

It was ye. It was the antihero. And the more. I kind of like, try to watch and analyze wrestling. I'm like, wrestling is this reflection of whatever Americans are rebelling against. So the Hogan area is maybe like, this is the rebellion against the guy who wears the suit and does everything proper and has the family and the dog in the yard. And then Hogan's like, fuck that. I do whatever I want. Right. Exciting. Then once you have that guy as the good guy, the rebellion is the guy who doesn't really give a fuck. And you see this, like, anti heroes pop in the Stone Cold, but you're pure baby face.

[Cody Rhodes]

The term we use is white meat baby face. And by the time this comes out, I don't know if that'll. It's very risky. I would never be mad if I started to hear the booze. Things would have to change a little bit. You'd have to pivot. But my model in the industry and a guy I drove around for a few years, God bless him, one of the best locker room leaders the company ever had was John Cena. Yeah, John is the virtuous, the goodest of good, but he had a. He had a really unique thing with the audience where half the people were there to see him win and the other half were there to see him lose. And that still means they're all here for Jon. They didn't realize it at the time because he told me once he goes, if they're chanting, let's go, Cena. Cena sucks. Well, I feel bad for the other guy in the ring with me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. And then it's not even saying right.

[Cody Rhodes]

Then they found moments where, like, CM Punk and him would wrestle against each other, and they started chanting for CM Punk. And that's where you started realizing, okay, guys are starting to click. They're starting to get to his level. Yeah. No, the babyface is a wild thing. But again tonight, I'm at Barclays. I could walk out there and it could.

[Andrew Schulz]

It could all end.

[Cody Rhodes]

It could all end. So I don't take it for a granted.

[Akash Singh]

What do you think makes you. What do you think? Was it anything you did intentionally? Was it just something that happened? Wrestling with the Peck or whatever? What do you think it was that really flipped everyone?

[Cody Rhodes]

This, the story, you know, we went into WrestleMania 40, we said we got to finish the story. Everything about what I have done and my return to WWE and where I went and all, all of that is real. So when our industry is at its best, it's when you're just reflecting real. And that's not always easy if you're playing like an astronaut or a really crazy out there character or Stardust, for example. But when you are telling them and telling them willing into existence. First promo I did returning to WWE was on Raw and no one looked at it. Not a single writer. Nobody asked. They had a full trust in what I was going to say. And here's the time Police at this time. And I just wanted to will it into existence. Here's the story. My dad helped held this up in the Garden in the late 70s. Then due to the nature of pro wrestling, he didn't get to leave with the title. And at 8 years old, you don't know the difference between what's real, what isn't real. I just looked at it and I wanted it. I wanted it for him and just told him that story. And I think that's the thing that maybe people identify with, is that it's real. Because so many things go against traditional babyface. Like wearing a suit and tie is not Baby Face. That's Ric Flair. That's flaunting your wealth, all that, but. But none of it's mattered at this point. And there's always people like, they're start booing them soon. They're going to start booing them soon. At this point, you've been saying it for three years. Like, of course you're right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now you know, I feel like, what is white meat? Babyface is earning your spot.

[Cody Rhodes]

Sure.

[Andrew Schulz]

And everything about your name should show you didn't earn. You're a Nepo baby.

[Cody Rhodes]

You did all these like anybody else a Nepo baby or no, everyone's in the game.

[Andrew Schulz]

I mean, we're all born in America in the greatest time of the Empire. A couple advantages.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, it helps. But is there not one Nepo hire in the whole. In the whole whole operation? Not one. Not a brother, a cousin?

[Andrew Schulz]

There's a lot of cronyism Well, I.

[Cody Rhodes]

Will say it's all crony.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's all crony friends. Yeah, yeah. None of it merit.

[Cody Rhodes]

If you bring in a family member, I bet you they do really well.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yes.

[Cody Rhodes]

I believe in the Nepo babies.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, I can't wait to Nepo my daughter into whatever.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

But my point is, I think this is, at least, again, outside casual perspective. But I think the idea was you really earned it. And I think people are looking at their lives, and maybe they're not feeling like they have the opportunity to do certain things, and you just kind of want to see somebody who deserves it get the shot once, and I think they can root for that. But before we get into that, I want to go to the beginning, because this is. Okay. I watched your father's hall of Fame induction speech.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, gosh.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. You come out. I think I became a Cody crybaby in that moment. Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

That was my first time on camera for the company. I worked for him at the time.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't know if you guys will see this, but it's.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Unbelievable. So this is your first time on camera. Do you have aspirations of getting in the business when you go up there?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, so you're going up there.

[Cody Rhodes]

So I'm already working for WWE at.

[Andrew Schulz]

The time, but nobody else knows.

[Cody Rhodes]

Nobody. I've been in developmental. I. Yeah. Great.

[Andrew Schulz]

Great, great, great, great. So this is the introduction of the next generation. Obviously, your brother, but the last, I guess, generation of roads in the business, and you do this amazing. Like, I got a little, like, emotional at the end of it. He'd be a Hall of Fame father. If there was a man, he would.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, that's the. That's so that people look at that and they always ask, like, gosh, bring that. You know, you have these speaking times where you do something, whether it's a promo or an interview, and they're, hey, bring that. Sometimes you can't bring that because I wasn't talking about anything artificial.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

This is my father. This is an easy one, guys.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

You know, this is real. Like, there are plenty of times we're talking about something that's, like, very fabricated, and we're creating a narrative. That one was as simple as could be. Set the bar very high because I really worked on it. I was going to be in front of some of my favorite wrestlers, some of my peers, my bosses. I really worked on it. And my brother, I hadn't seen him in quite some time.

[Andrew Schulz]

But did he know what you were going to say? No, because he felt really Touched when you gave him props first.

[Cody Rhodes]

I always try to impress Dustin with my professionalism, and I only give him a little. The best in wrestling. Give him a little hint. Yeah, I might say this. This might happen. Don't give him the full deal, you know? Yeah, that was a. That was a really significant moment I had. And that moment, though, also caused a little bit of an issue. I wasn't ready to come up yet. Wasn't good. I had like. Like, body wasn't there yet. I didn't have.

[Andrew Schulz]

But the audience wanted it, so you got to give them what they want.

[Cody Rhodes]

And the. The downfall being a Nepo baby, like, oh, this is easy. He bring him out. He was with his dad, and it's the whole. That's the downfall. The door wide open. You're. The money is right there. Some others are struggling for it, but then the idea is like, well, in some people's eyes, your dad's a Mount Rushmore guy. Good luck. And then that's that point. I wasn't ready at all. But I'm so thankful I came up when I did because, I mean, I literally grew up in front of the audience. That might be another reason why they took to everything. I grew up in front of them.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you start. You're doing pretty good in W, but not, like, super stardom.

[Cody Rhodes]

I wouldn't even say I'm doing pretty good.

[Andrew Schulz]

Don't you win the Intercontinental?

[Cody Rhodes]

So, yeah, along the way, I had. So what. I call them small bones. And I feel like anyone in entertainment gets this. Like, the opportunities that you want, the biggest opportunity, you want this, you want that. Your dreams are what they are. But at the time, it was little bones. Hey, here's the Intercontinental Championship, which by no means is a little bone, but it wasn't something at the time they were really featuring or spotlighting. Gunther recently had it, and it was such a bigger deal there. But anyways, it was little moments like that that they'd kind of fill your gas tank up. And then it was highs and lows, man. Highs and lows. Wrestling, especially if they've not. And I don't say they. But if a company, like any company in entertainment, like any show that they're involved in, you have to pick who's your number one, who's your number two. Like, who. Who's number one on the call sheet? Who are we investing in? It still is a show.

[Andrew Schulz]

Who was number one at the time?

[Cody Rhodes]

Gosh. Intercontinental Championship.

[Andrew Schulz]

No. Oh, yeah, yeah. During.

[Cody Rhodes]

I'd say. I'd say John still was John's number one, John's the guy. And then everything trickles down from that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

And. And yeah. So it was these moments like that that validated me and made me feel good. But at a certain point after that, I realized I was very much blocked in. They didn't see me growing. I mean, I was a child. I was 20 years old when I went to OVW to be in developmental. Couldn't order a drink. Like, 20 years old, didn't know anything about anything. And my dad didn't train me either. Didn't want to train me. So this was me just doing it with everyone, assuming I knew what I was doing. But, yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Why didn't he want to train me?

[Cody Rhodes]

He was really good about, hey, you want to do this? Great. I want you to be the best. And he was confident that I could do well, but he didn't want to touch it because he felt if he did anything, he even left. He was on the writing team at the time for Smackdown. He left the writing team before I got called up because he actually went to Full Sail Orlando and started that. He didn't. He thought it would be against me, you know, if he spoke out in any way, like, well, Cody should do this, or conflict of interest. Conflict of interest, for sure. And there are some dads, I've seen it both ways, who are so in on their kids, so in. And it works just as well. Yeah, but our strategy worked the same. It did. That was the best he had. He never had to push for me. He never had to be in an awkward conversation, anything like that. He let me just do it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, so what are they feeding you? Storylines? And then what is the process? And this is during, like, the harder time.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is the process when you get a storyline that you don't with at all?

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, it's like I. I refer to them as little battles. Again, it's not our sandbox. So who's ever promoting booking, whoever it may be? Like, right now, Triple H is in charge of the creative. I love that because most of the things that Triple H says, yes, great, I will run that play. All you can do in that position is say, hey, I don't love this. What about this? You always should have an alternative, too. That's something that when you're younger, you don't realize. You can't just say no. Can't just say, this sucks. Hey, I don't love this. But what about this?

[Andrew Schulz]

How do you manage up? How do you influence your own storylines?

[Cody Rhodes]

And what I tell people about the little battles every day is. You can only most of them you won't win, but you'll feel much better going home. If you at least fought the little battle. If you said, hey, I don't want to say this, and then it becomes a hey, we really need you to say this. All right, well, at least said it versus letting it all bottle up. Oh, I hate everybody. And, you know, just all that angst and all that, because that happened to me during Stardust during the. The younger run. I wasn't speaking up.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they change your character to Stardust. So you and your brother.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can kind of be this units. And it.

[Cody Rhodes]

It's awful, man. Yeah, awful. And it actually was okay. Like, crowds were kind of fun with it. We won the tag titles. There's some significant moments. But it wasn't you. It just wasn't, man. It was just so. But here, it's like if the William.

[Akash Singh]

Sisters only got to play doubles.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know what I mean? Yeah, that's fine.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think. I think at the time I learned this from when I went away is absolutely. Some of the. The behind the scenes aspects out of my control weren't. Weren't my fault. And this was something I had been tasked to do, and I did give it my 110%. However, I found that a lot of it was on. Was on me. A lot of it. So wrestling is the suspension of disbelief, and it's entertainment. There's, you know, we have writers, we have our show, whatever it may be. However, it's a lot more fair than people think. If you put yourself in the best of shape, if you invest in your gimmick or your character, if you work on your promos, if you are the go getter who goes. And especially in this era of social media, if you go out and you create a little empire or you work with the digital teams, again, small bones. If you just take advantage of all that, somebody sees it eventually and that's where things can pick up for you. And I wasn't doing all that. There's certainly parts of it. I can say this was just a bad idea, guys, because the original Stardust also had a hat. I only say hat. It's supposed to be a mask, but it looked like a hat. And it's like the original Electro from your 90s Spider man run. But it also had the like, basically, I don't know what you call it. It had the look of a condom that had just been yanked on your head. And I went and I showed it to creative at the time. And I remember Ash showing. It was like, I can't wear this. That's okay. No, and this was the. This was the part where my heart broke is I had long hair at the time, or longer. I didn't have a shaved head, and I never wanted to have a shaved head. And, gosh, they were like, well, no mask, but cut your hair like your brother. And at that point, that heart broke. I remember sitting there in that chair and just, like, cutting my hair and no idea what I was getting into. It was Cleveland, which used to be the Quicken Loans Arena. But that arena, poor thing. I've had some great moments in it since, but when I walk in there, it's just a dark feeling. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Tour announcement. First of all, New York City. Thank you so much. I love you. You okay? That was absolutely incredible. Okay. We got kicked out of that shitty Brooklyn theater. We stepped it up, went bigger, we went better. And we blasted through four shows in an hour. Unbelievable. Thank you guys so much. Y'all helped me down. I cannot wait to go film the special there. I'm very, very excited. I'm glad that you guys are all going to be there. Anybody who could not, you know, be there that day, we're gonna. We're gonna have more shows. You know, eventually in New York City, we're gonna have more shows, but we gotta lock in and focus on these right now, the rest of the tour. These are the shows that we have left. We added a second show in Reno, San Jose. Both shows are sold out. Portland, sold out. And then Honolulu, Hawaii, the Blydesdale Arena. That's the final show of the tour. It's kind of crazy. It's. It's really almost wrapped up. I can't. I can't believe it. But thank you guys so much. TheAndrewSholts.com if you want to get any of the tickets to those remaining shows. I appreciate y'all so much. See you soon.

[Cody Rhodes]

Peace.

[Akash Singh]

Also, guys, quick show announcement. November 1st and 2nd, Lexington, Kentucky. That might be the home of the clan. Or maybe that's Louisville. Either way, I would love for you guys to all show up. Let's talk things out out. Let's see what our differences are. Maybe we can make amends. November 22nd and 23rd, Rochester, New York, December 4th. Announcing this right now. I'm coming to Long Island. I've never headlined in Long Island. I am mostly scared of you guys, but now that we interviewed Donald Trump, I feel like you're going to love me. I'm one of the good ones. So I will be at Governors in Levittown. Come through all those dates and more@akash singh.com. also, we're still doing our thing on fan bases, dropping content there, so check that out as well. Now, let's get back to the show. Did your brother like doing the Gold Dust character?

[Cody Rhodes]

It really depends on the day you ask him. I know he's extremely proud of it. Extremely. Especially during the androgynous run of the late 90s, and him and Rowdy Piper going into WrestleMania 12, like, he got that WrestleMania 12. So here was a moment that I. Again, I'm in middle school at the time that Goldust comes out. Okay, so there's a lot of kids.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, we're about the same age.

[Cody Rhodes]

Attitude ERA is extremely popular. So now all these kids who didn't watch wrestling with elementary school want to ask questions like, fuck. Well, you know, that's. I don't have a lot of answers on Gold Dust. And at the time, him and my dad.

[Mark Gagnon]

A word you can't say now, right?

[Cody Rhodes]

Him and my dad weren't speaking. And one of the cooler moments where I realized, no matter how bombastic and ridiculous and out there the Goldust character was, I watched that Rowdy Piper match at WrestleMania 12 and how much it was a thread throughout the show. It was one of the bigger stories of WrestleMania 12. And my dad, who hasn't talked to Dustin at that point three or four years, I could see him just smiling ear to ear, and he was so happy that he got that moment and he had went out and did it on his own. He wasn't Dustin Rhodes. He was Goldust. And it's a very unique character. It's so funny that I went to a comedy show in LA a few years ago, and they were talking about if Goldust came out today, how he wouldn't be a bad guy at all. There was, for example, the guy's doing this gold. But he's like, I'm Goldust, and I'm gonna kiss this man. And then they had a plant in the crowd stand up, go, that's totally cool, man.

[Andrew Schulz]

We love it. We love it.

[Cody Rhodes]

He's like, no, no, but it's gonna get me.

[Andrew Schulz]

He.

[Cody Rhodes]

And he's like, no, man. They, like, threw a rainbow across the street. It was really, really special and fun and like, yeah, Golbest was just a unique character, but I think if you ask him, it kind of depends, you know, here's this, you know, country boy from Austin, Texas, and then this is the thing he wanted to do. But he really put like dove into it. Dove into it. He's got. He's a cinema buff.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

Because of gold dust. Because they'd always want him to quote these lines. So it's something that, you know, we're two, you know, kids in our family who didn't. We didn't go to college. Our education is this.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

You know, our worldly experience. And I think Dustin got a lot of a good experience out of it.

[Akash Singh]

I think the rumor was that Vince was upset at your dad or something, so gave him this rough character.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's always the story of.

[Akash Singh]

So there's no truth to it.

[Cody Rhodes]

The families didn't like each other.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think it's a good story. It's helped me, you know.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

But I don't. Maybe there's some truth there. Here and there. But I never experienced it so much. I was too young too. I think maybe Vince and my dad had some back and forth just because my dad went on and did his own thing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Cody Rhodes]

He wanted to go back to Florida. He wanted to run Jim Crocker Promotions, which was the rival promotion also. Yeah. I don't know if there was a rivalry that existed. It really didn't come down to me. Unless of course, the moment they say, hey, you're stardust. Unless that was it. And I just didn't read between the lines. I'm very naive, so it's possible, but.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, so you're tired of being stardust. You're like, I gotta get the hell outta here.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

You ask for your release. What's going on emotionally right there? Are you going? My career's over. Do you believe there's a path to redemption on the independent circuit? What's happening?

[Cody Rhodes]

I apologize to any wrestler today in any company who thinks they're going to get a release because I ruined it for a lot of people. And here's why I didn't ask. I told them in a very like, hey, I'll see you next week. I said, no, you won't. I remember telling the talent relations guy, I said, no, you won't. And of course everyone has their emotional, dramatic filled weeks. And, you know, maybe they just thought it was that. But I actually put my statement out on social media that, hey, thank you so much. Done. And once it was out in the ether, there was nothing. It was a huge gamble because I could have been sued. You know, to this day I don't think I've ever signed my. The contract like the. What's it called when you get the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Basically non compete clause Like, I never.

[Cody Rhodes]

Signed anything after that. And it was sent to my house. Like, I could have been sued, probably should have been sued, but I needed to take a very big risk and a very big gamble. In that moment, I felt. I felt I'd earned it. I thought, hey, the respect they have for my family, all that I've done, never slipped up here once. Done everything you asked. Give me this one. Let me. Let me ride off and. Okay, we're not gonna chase him.

[Mark Gagnon]

Dad wanted you to leave, Right.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, but. So he just got tired of hearing me, like, complain.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right?

[Cody Rhodes]

And you're unhappy. Yeah. And he. And I think as a dad, it just became, well, then quit. Then quit. And. And. And, you know, he. I don't know how much he meant it, but I know if I always tell people this, if he was like, wake up today and come back in this room, he would be. I'd have so much to explain to him about what happened, everything that happened. And. Yeah, like, we're all. I think if I started it with. Well, I've. I've main evented WrestleMania twice. I think he. All right, all right. What else happened? Like, don't worry about it, you know? But, yeah, no, it was. I needed to. I tell people all the time, it wasn't just to burn the bridges. It was a full. Burn the boats.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

I need the idea that I may never come back.

[Andrew Schulz]

You accepted. You might never go back.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's a lot of money to walk away from. That's a part that I don't know if people always realize why.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is.

[Cody Rhodes]

Like, you had a guaranteed life. Yes. You could be stardust forever. You could even potentially go back to Cody Rhodes in the way that it was and make great money for the rest of your life and go off into the sunset.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, I didn't know that the. I thought the financial compensation was based on, like, how often your character was used.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, no. So at the point. You know, the attitude era brought out guaranteed contracts, so guaranteed contracts it was. And not only that, a nep. Baby contract. Good money out of respect for the family and what they've done. Good money. But I didn't care about, like, the respect for my family. I love that. I cared about the respect for me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Like, I never went anywhere. I've been here this whole time, guys. Like, I've done. I've been part of WrestleMania Angles Intercontinental title. Like, why you get me so close to the top of the ladder, but you're never gonna. And not gonna take it, you know? And again, I put A lot of that blame on myself looking back at it in hindsight. But at the moment I was. You mentioned the emotional state I was. I don't know how I could possibly describe that emotional state other than I was scared to death but couldn't let my wife know I was scared to death. And financially, this is the thing that no one knows. I wasn't the best with my money. So I tell people all the time like, oh, I'm fine. I worked there for 10 years. I'm good. I got a good. Wasn't the case.

[Andrew Schulz]

How bad?

[Cody Rhodes]

So, well, basically I'd still be working. If I started working immediately after the WWE deal ended. I would be check to check. In terms of check to check. I just bought our first house in den outside of Dallas and it wasn't as I always tell people, I'm the one. Rhodes who's good with his money. No, not necessary. Yes. And it's gotten better. It's gotten better. But that was a very scary moment because I had a wife.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

You know, and like that's the number one thing is I know how to spend it well. Like she worked for WWE too.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

She was a ring announcer and she, of course, cuz she's super loyal, you know, the number one thing you want. She's. I didn't think she was going to leave. And then a week later she's like, oh yeah, I'm out too. No, don't.

[Andrew Schulz]

We don't do that.

[Cody Rhodes]

One of us needs a job. I, I needed her far more than, than she realized. In that point. I, you know, everyone. There have been some imbalance in terms of one time I think she was leading, pulling the wagon and other times I was able. But I had the best partner in the world. I mean ballsy and bold. For her to leave. She left and she needed to because she was getting really. When I was gone, she was saying some wild stuff. She was yelling at people. Yeah. She was just very much a wonderful wife.

[Andrew Schulz]

Love it. Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Ready to fight at all times. So like, you know, she's from Detroit, Michigan. She's. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, okay, so you go into the independent circuit.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. But you do this thing where you post, I think what is on Twitter.

[Cody Rhodes]

The list.

[Andrew Schulz]

The list.

[Cody Rhodes]

The list. Yeah, explain.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's fine. Like, okay, so the list is five.

[Andrew Schulz]

Explain like the, the thinking behind this. Are you creating your own storyline? Are you using the heat of leaving and trying to propel yourself in the independent circuit? Is it purely financial or is there like a long game for this as well?

[Cody Rhodes]

The List was I'd found when people got fired a lot. I hate saying it so strongly, but when people got let go that they would say something like, hey, that's great. Thank you. Stay tuned for the next chapter. I always stay tuned for the next chapter to me is the kiss of death. That to me almost reads as you don't have a next chapter. So I wanted to have a next chapter.

[Andrew Schulz]

Stay tuned to the next chapter. You haven't planned anything, right? This means, hey, this is my plan. I'm in control of my fucking destiny. And these are the names I want.

[Cody Rhodes]

And I wanted to mobilize. So at the time, social media is really, really strong. I mean, you could build a brand on there alone. So I wanted to mobilize those fans who did rally behind. I can't believe this is happening. This was one of your guys and he's out there. So I wanted to mobilize and I went to Kevin Owens, who I work with at wwe. And Kevin Owens was the one who kind of proofread the list in a sense of that one's not going to do anything. Do you really want that one? Yeah, I think I do want that one.

[Andrew Schulz]

And these were the biggest names on the independent circuit.

[Cody Rhodes]

I guess it wasn't so much the biggest names, some of the biggest names, but it was more a real diversity to the list. And what I mean by diversity to the list is I trained through WWE as a WWE type wrestler. Old school TV style, a different style of wrestling. And at the time, the underground scene, it's almost better to label it underground than independent. Was. Was the coolest stuff you could imagine.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is Ring of Honor.

[Cody Rhodes]

Ring of Honor. Every independent, I mean, like you, big, crazy high spots, athleticism out the roof. A bunch of psychologically nonsensical stuff from my training. But I wanted people to know, like, I'm not above that, like, effort. I'm gonna come and I'm going to try what I would consider some stupid stuff. And I. I don't want to wrestle anybody. I don't want to do a WWE versus WWE guy. No, like, put me against the youngest, dumbest guy who does really fun stuff. Like, put me against that person I want to see and test myself. And that was.

[Akash Singh]

So everybody on the list is just an idiot.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, no, no, no, no. They're all smart in their own ways. You know, like that's a code for an idiot.

[Andrew Schulz]

White meat, baby face. All right, so you're beating up these retards.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, they're all smart. There's only One guy I never got. There's one name I didn't check off the list. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, who?

[Cody Rhodes]

It was a guy named Roderick Strong. Not an idiot.

[Andrew Schulz]

We just sounds like Strong.

[Cody Rhodes]

We just never, we never crossed paths like I thought. We got to get this one on the list. WrestleMania 41. Yeah. Hey, man, we got to get, get it off the list. But yeah, that was a really fun time. Every one of those people offered something huge to what I was doing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, are they aware of the list? Are they hitting you up on the side like, hey, this is a brilliant idea. Let's make this happen?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, most of the people on the list were really. I mean, not to like, most people on the list were like, I, yes, let's. We'll make this. There's like five different indies I work for who want to book this. Where do you want to do it? And I'll, I'll do promos. I'll do that. Most people were really excited.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you guys are both cutting your own promos. You're starting up these stories and then they're happening on the indie circuit. Do you immediately notice crowds being a lot bigger than they would normally be at some of these indies? When does it feel like there's the undercurrent?

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, the second weekend I did independent wrestling. I did it for a company called Northeast Wrestling that's Connecticut based and they were more of a mom and pop indie. And they did a softball fields for their big summer shows. And I noticed I did three in a row. I noticed we were at like 1500, 2000, 4500. These are indie crowds. Indy crowd is 50 to 200. And a smart. Indy is going to book a building that only holds.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it looks nice and clean.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. And it's loud and they're excited. And that's your core group. But I noticed there we were having numbers. It's not two things are happening at the same time. I've helped mobilize me and get people, hey, please come check me out if you'd never seen an independent before. We'll do some cool stuff. You might find some people you like. But also at the time, independents were on the rise. So because of guys like Matt and Nick Jackson are two people, I use an example. But that happening, that happening was the perfect storm. Because some TVs at the time for WWE were doing 4,500 some. You know, it's not easy. I mean, in all worlds, it's not easy to sell tickets on a regular basis. So the fact that that was Happening really opened my eyes. I was in Manchester in the United Kingdom and there was a show at a kid's ice arena.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

But it held about, I think 6,000 people. And I never will know the full number. And I could give you the wrestler exaggeration of like we had seven there. But it's a great part of the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Vince doc where he goes. We had 93,000 people in Detroit, we had 93. And some guy goes on.

[Cody Rhodes]

There was 70,000 people and it was Silverblades Arena. And I remember thinking, this is like a mini. This is actually what I thought it was, a mini WWE show. There's signs for the locker rooms, there's catering, there's. Every seat is full. And that was a big one for me where I thought, there's a thing happening. I wonder who else is in on this thing. Who else knows? Who else can drive this? What is the next steps? And I. I didn't know though.

[Andrew Schulz]

Did you feel like you were spearheading it or do you feel like there was other.

[Cody Rhodes]

I need baby heal for us, Cody. I felt like there were two huge. And I think I was at the lead of one of those fronts. I think the other front was a group called New Japan Pro Wrestling. And New Japan was doing mind blowing athleticism and storytelling. They had Kenny Omega and they had the Young Bucks. And I don't think we have anything in common amongst the four of us other than we wanted it. We wanted it. We would fight for each other. We would pair together. I went over there and saw exactly the Bullet Club was happening.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's the Bullet Club?

[Cody Rhodes]

So the Bullet Club was this fact. Great factions in wrestling, dx, the Four Horsemen, whatever. It was a faction in New Japan, but they had the sickest merchandise. It was this skull and it got so big that actually this rep from, I think it was Hot Topic or somewhere came to a Wrestlemania and he asked somebody, he said, where are the Bullet Club guys?

[Andrew Schulz]

Whoa.

[Cody Rhodes]

And they were like, oh, that's a, you know, an independent thing. And again, I was so lucky to. They were. Their wave was going and my wave was going. And that's where we collided. And from there it. It was different. There it is. The Bullet Club. Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's fire.

[Cody Rhodes]

I was the leader for a short period of time. There's a whole online argument about was I ever a Bullet Club leader. It is official. I did lead it. You heard it here. I did lead it. I won against Kenny to get leadership of the Bullet Club for a brief time. But guy in wwe, I have to Shout him out for that logo is Finn Balor. He's probably owed millions of dollars for the success of Bullet Club. He started it, and I don't think he's ever seen any of that. I know. He's just happy that he. Well, as a former leader, you should. That's right. That's right. He. Yeah, I just put him over on the bucket.

[Andrew Schulz]

Gave him a shout out. You Kenny, the Young Bucks, you start talking about this event. Yeah, Right. Can you tell us how all in ends up happening?

[Cody Rhodes]

All in is the craziest. The original all in was an independent show.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, no, no, no, no. Go back. Even for the Meltzer tweet.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, he said we couldn't do it.

[Andrew Schulz]

So there's a guy. He's a wrestling journalist. He is Meltzer.

[Cody Rhodes]

It was his birthday yesterday to.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, hat. Well, let's. Let's. Cuz he, I think, plays a really important part. As in all wrestling stories. There are all these side factions that influence the.

[Cody Rhodes]

He's the biggest observer, is what his newsletter is called. But he's been covering wrestling and mixed martial arts for 40 years. And it went from being a newsletter that fans got the inside scoops, but also a lot of the financial aspects of this that he just always covered it and like, whoa. I feel almost forever this tether to him. We're not. I wouldn't say we're close or anything like that, but I always feel this tether because he made that tweet and here I am. He tweets that they asked, could Roh get 10,000 people in Arena?

[Andrew Schulz]

Ring of Honor. This is the.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, at the time. I've been on these shows. I know we can, buddy. I've seen it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, have you done the show with the Young Bucks and Kenny with Ring of Honor yet?

[Cody Rhodes]

So we have. We've done together with Ring of Honor in New Japan. We did a show at Lakefront that was for Ring of Honor specific that did as many seats in the building. It was 7,000 people. So what are we. What are we talking about here?

[Andrew Schulz]

You're feeling the buzz.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, I'm not only feeling the buzz. I'm pre workout up at the gym. I'm loaded. Let's go. I'm loaded. Niacin is like pumping through my veins. Lifetime Fitness in Woodstock, Georgia. And I saw this tweet and I thought, like, no, man. Like, this is again, let's just will it into existence.

[Andrew Schulz]

So he goes, I don't think anyone in America outside the WWE.

[Cody Rhodes]

WWE can do 10,000.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can do 10,000. Seats.

[Cody Rhodes]

You tweet, I'll take that bet, Dave. I said, I'll take that bet.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then what is the. What is the, like, underground feeling? Or does it cross over from underground to just WWE fans? Like, what. What's happening?

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, immediately upon tweeting it, I had to call everyone and, hey, are we interested in this? Because I. I am very, very worried, and I would. I would not worried that we couldn't, but I. At this point, I'm wrestling for one company, pretty exclusive domestically in the United States, that being Ring of Honor. And Matt and Nick, we're all making the same rounds. Kenny's in Japan the whole time. We need financing. Can we go to Ring of Honor for some assistance with financing? And he just passed away. A wonderful man named Joe Koff was. He's far more instrumental in it than people will ever know, because he saw what we were doing and thought, okay, it's definitely not in your contract, but we can help with production. We can help you. Here's the number to call. Here's Gary Juster was his name, because again, I'm now calling Bill Buildings. Hey, Ontario, California, you know that building out there, is it U.S. bank arena or something like, calling these buildings? Like, hey, we want to run a show. Like, I have no cold calling. I'm cold calling. Yeah, yeah. And so we. We get what we need in place to be able to do it. We're also told, I think it was Labor Day or Memorial Day weekend, and they give us the September. Which one's September? Labor Day.

[Andrew Schulz]

Labor Day.

[Cody Rhodes]

September.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

They told me that's the worst date for wrestling. It's. It's never like, everything.

[Andrew Schulz]

Plans that, parties, beach. Why would they go?

[Cody Rhodes]

Why would they come?

[Andrew Schulz]

That's why it's.

[Cody Rhodes]

And I thought, okay, it's cheap. It's available. Here we are. We're gonna scale. This is one of my favorite things in my brief management run was to be able to scale tickets. So, okay, front row, $150. You know, just like this bowl, like 25. I thought it was so cool. I got no clue what I'm doing. But. And Matt, Matt, Nick, Brandy, Dana, Kenny, we're all kind of in on this together. We're paying people the most. PayPal, Venmo, cash. But the big rule we wanted to break was there was rules even for all the companies that you can't cross the streams. This is before the term forbidden door was coined. But Ken such and such from CMLL in Mexico, be in the same ring with a guy from AAA in Mexico, and we were of the thought there are no rules to the show. We're running the show. Me and these two other guys are running this. So if you want to be on it, it's going to be huge. How we knew it was going to be huge is we put the tickets on sale, it crashed. We're on the drive from this press conference where the mic didn't even work. We're already as bush league as we could be. And it crashes and it sold out in. I think it sold out in 23 minutes. 11236 United Center, Chicago. Not United, it was United holds like 20,000. This is 11,000 now arena in Schaumburg.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, this is.

[Cody Rhodes]

We said Chicago. But also there's like a plaque on the outside side of it. To this day, with me and Matt, Matt Nick's faces that I've never seen in person. Just because they, they were doing graduations, some minor league games here and there. They hadn't had something fill it up like that either in a long time. And yeah, 23 minutes or 11,236 people and everything at that point, everything, everything in my life changed.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you tweet anything at that moment? Do you tag anything?

[Cody Rhodes]

I think I tweeted a lot of stuff. A lot of pre workout.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Always my best ideas under pre workout. I actually tell Triple H, whenever I send him a creative idea, I always will say I'm caffeinated up because I'll look at it 10 hours later and be like, what, bro? Why was this important to me? The post pump clarity is unreal. And that's where the tweet should go out the text. But at that point, it was the first thing that happened with All In. Isn't just the show itself the best way I can describe it, it was like Woodstock for Wrestling. Because this guy who does a series of podcasts, he's super successful. He's helped rehabilitate a lot of the older wrestlers. His name's Conra Thompson. Conrad told us, he's like, hey, can I run a convention? People are going to piggyback off this destination event you guys have created. This is unheard of. Can I do a convention at the Hyatt and I'll take care of it. You give me the rules. Because we were really big on. It's not going to be a legends deal. This is young, this is up and coming. You're going to see the next generation of superstar and wrestler. And once he set that three day convention, every vendor applied, every booth was filled. I remember Walking into that hotel, and there's just an entire lobby full of wrestling fans all in that Bullet Club shirt. And they've got a live radio set up in the lobby. And when we walked in, everyone just stood up and clapped. Wow. And I, I, I felt like, loyalty. I couldn't. Then I went by the bar menu, and the bar menu's labeled with, like, Farro's Fries, American Nightmare cheeseburger. I was like, yes, this is happening. Like, we made it. Oh, man. Did anything, Anything go wrong? Everything. Everything went wrong. Like, minutes leading up to the event, were you like, oh, we gotta cancel it. So the. I almost. I wouldn't be sitting in here, sitting in this chair had this gone the other way. And this is not a fun story to tell or anything like that, but it's the truth, because some people know the story. I got into a slight tussle the night before because I'm walking Pharaoh, my beloved husky, who's always a part of what I do, and I had him off a leash. I was in the wrong, but Pharaoh is chill. Pharaoh's not ever going to be a problem. But this man got in my face over it, so you shouldn't. That's dangerous. Probably right. He's probably had a bad experience with a dog. I'm not. You're probably right. But something about it, maybe I had some caffeine in my system. I don't know what it was. But he, like, got so close that I felt like he had encroached on my space. So I did shove him. And when I shoved him, he rolled back into the bushes. Like he took this Homer Simpson, enormous Homer Simpson, you know, Peter Griffin style fall. And the next thing I knew, I was like, oh, no, he's wrestling. Oh, no. So, you know, like, oh, and he, he had called the cops. I decided, hey, I'm gonna stay in the lobby. I'm not gonna try and run. I'll stay in the lobby. So it really had. He said, like, I'm pressing charges. It's over, it's over, it's over. And that was the first. The next day was the first day in my career. I had a security detail and my wife was. You do not leave this room without this man. His name was Sam. He's like, sam is going everywhere with you. Like, I had, like, I was a problem child or something. One incident happened over our dog. You got put on leash. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they put me on a leash, but I got to the building. Yeah, it was. It was touch and go for a second in addition to that, we lost one of our producers. There's a little pyro hijinks that went off at the beginning where we were trying to show people that we were the first company to have pyro again. And it didn't explode, but then it did. As I was starting to go into the next bit, it was like the Joker randomly. I got an email again, and I've almost been arrested now, so I can't go to sleep. I got an email in the middle of the night from John Mayer's publicist, and I thought, no, it's clearly not real. It's like, hey, John would like to come with his friends who are doing a bachelor party, but there are no seats. Like, it's a true, true sellout. Like, yeah, whatever. Like, I'm not replying to this again. I'm already in the doghouse. The next morning, I wake up, and Dana Massie was her name. She tells me, like, hey, did you get back to that email? Like, no. Oh, well, I did. John Mayer is coming to this show. I'm like, wait, John Mayer? Like, the actual John Mayer? Like, he's coming. And we legit didn't have a seat, so we put him in the middle of the aisle. So he's just in the middle. So the whole show, you can see him, like, every match. There he is, man, it's John. That's so cool. It was really touching that he wanted to come by. I just didn't believe it. But, yeah, it's just a series of little calamities. But when we got there, everyone was so excited to be on.

[Andrew Schulz]

How was the wrestling that night?

[Cody Rhodes]

Other the main event got super rushed because one match went over. But even super rushed, it was fireworks. Rey Mysterio was part of it. Just him giving us the rub as, like, here's a former world champion and WWE hall of Famer Rey Mysterio wants to be part of all in. And again, I'll never forget, Rey is heading to the ring, taking pictures with other wrestlers who are backstage shocked that they're in the same locker room as Ray. When the show has eight minutes left on the air, I'm like, buddy, in his little Wolverine outfit, I'm like, please go to the ring. Come on, Please go to the ring. But I think the most fun I had was after my stuff was over, I got to sit down in the producer chair and just put the headset on and call a few shots here and there. Hey, check this out. This is coming. And it just felt like the job. I Always wanted. The moment I always wanted. But I'm real greedy. I am. I'm super white meat. I'm super greedy. That the moment it was happening, I just was thinking, thinking, what else are we gonna do? I bet we can do this again. I bet we can. I bet we can go double or nothing. I bet we can do this again. And. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

When do you get the call from Tony Khan?

[Cody Rhodes]

He was at. He was at the original all in.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So he.

[Cody Rhodes]

I needed some help, so. So I needed help flying Chris Jericho. Matt Nick me needed help flying Chris Jericho there, and Tony offered to use his plane.

[Andrew Schulz]

And Tony's a big wrestling fan.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. But he also comes from some money. I think his family's involved with the Jaguars and stuff.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, they own the Jags.

[Andrew Schulz]

They own the Jags. Okay. Yeah. So he. You and him connect. He sees what the four of you guys are doing. AEW sprouts out of that. Do you have to pitch him? Is he pitching you guys?

[Cody Rhodes]

No, I think. And I think that's one of the more. Why, maybe. I wouldn't say. I hope there's no tension between all the four on the ground. But everyone's got a different story a little bit. And everyone's story puts them in the driver's seat for sure. And. And I think he already had in his mind, because he had scribbled down the name Dynamite for tv. I think he'd already had in his mind what he wanted. I think what we offered was proof of concept and that, hey, we can show this to somebody. Because I remember sitting in the upfronts for. At the Time WarnerMedia before discovery.

[Andrew Schulz]

Upfronts are like an advertising showcase.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Just for anybody who's watching right now. So basically, you talk to all the people that would potentially advertise on your programs, and you pitch them what it's going to be. Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

And it was at Madison Square Garden. It was the blue carpet, all this. And I remember. So I'm sitting there and this guy is going on and on about the show we're doing, but he's never seen it. And they're using photos from all in and photos from our independent run. They're just plastered up there. And there's Daniel Radcliffe sitting in front of me. Shaq is in the corner like, please take my picture down. This guy spent a lot of time on us. Like, I hope we. I hope we do well. But that's where it all started, and everybody had a different. Again, Mad Nick can claim to be in the driver's seat. I have a claim to it. Tony for sure has a claim to it. Kenny, everybody. I think that's why it worked. Yeah, I think that's why it worked. I look forward to everyone's books being out where it's like, ah, it was me.

[Andrew Schulz]

I did it. There's a great book called the Dirt, which is like, Motley Crue story.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And it's told in four different ways.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, I love that. Each.

[Andrew Schulz]

Each member of the band has their rendition of the story.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And how different these four stories.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, yes. That's the best.

[Andrew Schulz]

True. Like, there's one story where a guy's like, yeah, I fell in love with this girl. And then the next guy's telling the story. He's like, this guy was fucking my girl. And I didn't realize. And they all truly believe that's what's happening.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's why I never. When I never try to go in absolutes on anything, because I know. Know everyone truly believes their part in this. Chris Jericho coming in, given the rub, you know, having had such a successful WWE career, having main evented WrestleMania, him, he has AI was in the driver's seat.

[Andrew Schulz]

The rub means what? Like, legitimizing. Passing on the rub.

[Cody Rhodes]

The rub from us, you know, when we're talking about Ray on All in, is when you have someone who has all this equity, all this fan support, and they're making you legit.

[Akash Singh]

You know, legitimacy rubs off on. On y'all.

[Cody Rhodes]

And. And in wrestling, you agree. You know, I had this wonderful moment where it was as simple as, here's this guy, I drove around, and now he's peacemaker and a movie star. John Cena just bringing me out on a Monday night Raw. They introduced me and holding my hand up. And that's a rub, you know, and the rub works both ways. So me going on the independent scene, I got the. I got to give a little WWE guy tv, but I got the, like, the underground rub. I got especially. Hey, I'm going to try this stupid, stupid stuff. Some of it's. Dude, I'm gonna go for it.

[Mark Gagnon]

Drake giving out a bunch of features on, like, independent art strategy.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, your cosign. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

[Cody Rhodes]

Wow.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, guys, let's take a break for a second because I gotta tell you about Odoo.

[Cody Rhodes]

All right?

[Andrew Schulz]

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[Cody Rhodes]

All these indies were so great and, like, you could feel them kind of coming up. Were there any that were depressing? Like, you go from an arena that's great every single night to then within a week you're in like a ball ballroom at, like a Marriott. Okay, so there's. I always say I did because we did an absurd amount of every weekend. And the schedule was where I'd have to fly every day because it wasn't like a normal loop where I could travel and the logistics weren't coordinated. I go from all Pro Wrestling and NorCal to one in Corpus Christi. Yeah, there's one bad indie I did. But every indie had its unique charm. For example, there's no pyro, there's no explosions. There's not a lot of production on Independence. I remember I did this really good one actually called VIP wrestling. And I stood up on the set, second buckle to do something flex, stick my arms out, just G up a little, and this dude shot like a pop gun of confetti up into me. And I thought, that's okay. Something.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's where we're at.

[Cody Rhodes]

Thank you. Yeah, like, you know, appreciate it, dog. Like, thank you.

[Andrew Schulz]

How do you honestly react in that?

[Cody Rhodes]

No, I remember thinking, like, a lot of times in my mind I'd say, like, yep, this is. This is where we're at. This is. I knew what it was. And as long as the seats were full, I'm not mad, you know, so as long that's the one you didn't want to be at. And I am lucky I did not have one of those where you see these horror stories online. And I didn't have. The second row was empty. I didn't have it. I was lucky that every place I went, we got to fill up or near fill up. The only bad one I ever did, I was doing a guest role on Arrow. At the time, Stephen Amell, who I'd worked with briefly at wwe, gave me this huge opportunity to come and do Arrow and I lied to the production again. Money I again needed to get serious about this. So the production was like, you got to stay in Vancouver. You can't leave. Well, I know I'm not shooting on this day. I know for sure. I'm double confirmed. So I'm going to go to this random independent in Connecticut, which is a hike to get there from Vancouver to Connecticut, Connecticut on the way. And I'm going to do my normal bit, have this big match and I'll stay in the ring and if you want to come in the ring and take photos, because always for me, that was the best part of the night, the independence of the night. So I go to Connecticut to this independent and the night before, I'm in Vancouver and it's legit three in the morning and they haven't done. They're not done with me yet. And I'm laying in a pool of water and they've got just the gun from the scene pointed at me and they're just trying to frame the shot up. I'm in the middle of like cold winter in Vancouver, laying in this water in full gear and the whole deal. And I told the lady at the production, I was like, have that van ready to take me to the airport. Like, just don't say anything about where I'm going. Have it ready to take me to the airport. So go to the airport. It's just a stress, stressful day. I'm putting on spray tan in the bathroom at the Sky Club. Just having a stressful day. But I wanted to make this show and I get there and we do the match and it's great. And then I'll remember the promoter had promised me for an after party. And that didn't. I didn't. That didn't seem right. I didn't feel like that was part of the deal. And I. I'd said like, hey, I'll sign a bunch of stuff, whatever you need. But like, no. And they in. He got a little aggressive with me on this was part of the deal that you do this after party. So at this point, out of spite, like, you got it, I'll be there. So the guy's driving me. I come to the after party, I get carded outside the door, which had been a long time, big marker on my hand. I'm like, oh, this is great. I sit down, there's nothing to this. I did not need to be here. There's not a fan engagement to it. There's nothing to it. And I guess it was his birthday or something. So when he walks in, everyone clapped for, for him and had this big moment and I thought, this is, this is the one bad one I've had, guys. And a lot of other factors went into. It wasn't just his birthday party, but yeah, other than that, I had no bad experiences. I knew what it was. Yeah, I knew where we were at.

[Andrew Schulz]

You level, set the expectations.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, also my mom, she's, she has the best quote of all. When I told her I'm, I'm gonna go do independent wrestling and I'm gonna make something of it and I'm, I'm gonna make it. I remember telling her and she said great, you'll either end up dead or in jail. Dead or in jail. And now Mama RHS is a fixture on WWE television. Gets her front row seats every show. So just, just does a little way.

[Akash Singh]

I always laugh when you tell a story because it's like dead or in jail, Mama. It's wrestling, selling drugs, corners in Baltimore.

[Cody Rhodes]

It seemed, it seemed a bit extreme. Dead or in jail. Also like how do you get dead or in jail? Hey, the independent wrestling didn't work out so I, I got murdered. So I started crime. Like I don't know, dead or in jail. And now she's loving it.

[Mark Gagnon]

How different was the bag like when you left WWE to doing the independent circuit? Like how much are you making a.

[Andrew Schulz]

Show on the financial job?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

So the biggest thing you've got to do, and I think it's the same to this day, is you can't out price yourself on an independent. So I noticed some guys would come from WWE and this promoter, remember they might have 200 seats to sell. They're probably all 20, $30 maybe. And they're going to get some from the table, have guys like merchandise element to it or whatever it may be. So I'd see guys price themselves at $4,500 a show.

[Andrew Schulz]

I mean let's just do the math. Like you got 200 people, $20, what is that, 4 grand? 40? Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. So that's. So this is one guy. So if one guy prices himself at 4,500 over three days, unless you have a sponsor or somebody's, there is like a set, there's all these little like loopholes you could find. I didn't want to be that guy because I knew they won't bring me back. But I also, I also can't Price myself too low. So we ended up. There were shows I did for. I mean, there were some shows I did for free. Wow. There were some shows I would do for like 1500 bucks and some shows I did for 750. It was all over the map. But the point was they're going to have such a good time. I'm not going to be involved in your storyline here so much so you don't have to worry about that. I'm going to do so much with them at the end of the night and throughout the meet and greet that you'll keep me coming. Keep me coming. And they never. I always stayed booked. It's one of my things I hate the most about modern indie wrestling is the inflation. The money is now huge in our game. So guys are saying, oh, I need first class and six grand. Like, buddy, again, there's 200 people there, man. Like, take a look at the room, you know, do you want to do this or do you not? And yeah, it's. I was. I was lucky that it was definitely a far beneath where I was at with WWE in terms of the bag. But if you hustle and there's a guy on the independent scene now, Matt Cardona, who had been with WWE for if you hustle. Yeah, you will. You will find a lot of. A lot of money. It's just new to you, Matt.

[Andrew Schulz]

Matt Cardona spoke about an interesting concept with you. It's called the Cody Lie.

[Cody Rhodes]

Cody lie. Yeah, yeah. He's famous for the Cody.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is the Cody lie?

[Cody Rhodes]

Cody lie is.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is your heel turn right here on the flavor.

[Cody Rhodes]

If the story needs a little extra, then you just throw. You got to keep it. The rule of the Cody Lias has to be true, but there's just got an added element to it. You know, he talks about his first meeting when he had come to talk to us at AEW and how he blew that meeting. And he claims he didn't say the things he did. He said two of the three things I said he did. The third is just an added for the color, you know, for give it a little something. But he did say, I don't.

[Andrew Schulz]

Lies are outside of entertainment. These lies are just in life. Right.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, what's the difference? I would say it's never a lie. It's just you got to put a little like a little something on it. Yeah, exactly. Like it's a. If you've ever seen the man who shot Liberty Valance, it's a classic. Like, once the legend becomes fact, print the legend. Yeah. Come on. I deal. I grew up under the tree of the storyteller, man, you know, like, I'm not gonna. You know, we're comedians.

[Andrew Schulz]

We know about life.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. If I'm writing my book, if I'm reading a book to Liberty and it's not as great, you know, like Mother Gothel may not be the heel in this story. Maybe she had her own problem. You gotta use lies to tell the truth. That's a good way to put it. Exactly. Cody lie has been exaggerated in the business. Now to the point where I have to be very firm about. Hey, I'm dead serious. Please understand this is not a bit. This happened and I hate that.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is the action figure lie that you told him?

[Cody Rhodes]

It's not listening. He claimed half Hasbro WWF action figures, which are famous. There's a rumor that there's a yellow boots variant Dusty Rhodes. And the reality is there isn't. There's a sun damaged Dusty Rhodes where the boots have become yellow. And that's what people are talking about, the yellow boots. But I told him, and I would be the expert on this being that's my father, that I did have one and that I had spoken to someone high up at Hasbro and they wanted it, but I wanted him to get the first look at it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Matt Cardona.

[Cody Rhodes]

Matt Cardona. And. Well, where is it? I said, I'll bring it to tv. And I had it in my bag. I had nothing in my bag. This is. I'm seeing how long I can go.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

This is not a Cody lie. This is a lie. It's just a regular.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, here's where the truth might be. There might be a. So I told him, I said, just go. Go. It's in my bag. Just go get it. But the whole point of this was I wanted him to get caught going through my bag so that I could tell the locker room here, this guy's going through our b. We need to kick him out of the locker.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, yeah, look in his bag.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's a cardinal rule. You don't go into someone's bag. That's an instance. Why is he in your vet? So. So I went right in on him, like, how you can't trust this guy. He's going into people's bags. And he was. How? How? He didn't know. Why would I a put it in my bag? Like. And if it's this valuable piece, is it just loose my bag? But yeah, I told everybody went through my bag. And that's a problem in the line locker room. You know, but we got over it, okay?

[Andrew Schulz]

Aw, you're the vp. You have everything. Once again, life is great. You're making money. You took all the risk. No reason to leave you. You're killing it. Everything's going great. Right. Why on earth would you shake the cage again?

[Cody Rhodes]

There's a. I don't want to give you a Cody lie on the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Look at.

[Cody Rhodes]

There's so many factors that went into it. But this is one. One small example, because when I start talking about this, people try to cite, oh, it was this. Oh, it was this. It was this. Here's what I can tell you. It wasn't. It wasn't anything to do with Tony and Brandi. That's a big one. You hear all the time that Tony didn't sign Brandi. No, Brandi had been re signed. Roads to the top. We had a nice show on TBS that had been renewed for a second season. Go Big show. Which I was doing with Bert Kreischer and Snoop.

[Andrew Schulz]

You and kid killing it.

[Cody Rhodes]

So we're at.

[Andrew Schulz]

You have all these other things are also leaving. I don't know if people realize that, but you had the reality show, the show that you're hosting with Bert, and obviously you're a fixture and part of a VP of this wrestling organization. So to leave all of that.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, it was just a situation that felt icky. And this is how I kind of look at it. In the end, I had really great memories with all of them, all the way back to all in, like the Woodstock of wrestling. I had a really beautiful experience for a while, and I wanted to keep the memories good. I wanted to be able. In 10 years, if I see those guys or I wanted to keep them good. Yeah. I also wanted them to know this is the Louisiana Purchaser wrestling dog. I will. I'll make sure. But I had great memories with them and I wanted them to get to know.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is it true that Vince flies to your house in Atlanta to pitch you on coming to wwe?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yep. Yeah. He. He found out through the Dirt Sheets, as we call them. We need a better name for our wrestling media, but that's what we call them, the Dirt Sheets.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Sounds like a Diddy party.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, my God. Yeah. We really need a better name. He found out that I was free and free. Free. Nobody wanted to dabble. If you're not free. If this is a storyline, if this is a bit. We don't need to be talking because that's. That's trouble. So I found out I was free, free and came to my house In Atlanta. And it was really old school in terms of, hey, there's no promises beyond. This is what we are considering. You wrestling seth Rollins at WrestleMania 38 in Dallas. Seth Rollins was somebody I'd felt like I'd been chasing when I was there the first time and really old school scribbled on a piece of paper the amount of money the contract would be before and just slid it across, which was unnecessary.

[Andrew Schulz]

What was it? What was it? What was it?

[Cody Rhodes]

I can't, I can't tell you exactly how much it was. I can tell you It's. I mean, 15 times more than what I had been making in WWE. The first front, it was a different layer of.

[Andrew Schulz]

Of course, well, you've earned it.

[Cody Rhodes]

It was a different, it was a different. Even with everything I'd done and I, with all those other shows. But this, this was, is hilarious. It was slid across to me. You guys are alone in your house? Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Say it out. Yeah, you can't get out of character. It's impossible for him.

[Cody Rhodes]

But that happened and I looked at that and I actually didn't as much. Again, not the smartest. It wasn't really a money thing. I thought, this is huge. If I'm. I own all this stuff, you know, the logo, my music, my look. Most of the times you get caught in the aspect of that's ours, these creations of yours. So many of little things I created don't belong to me. However, this was created outside.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is one of the most random things here.

[Cody Rhodes]

So I can bring this actual whole thing. So that was my concern.

[Akash Singh]

I said this meaning the American Nightmare.

[Cody Rhodes]

The American Nightmare. The music is a big part of it. Every aspect of what I do. The fact that I'm not going to say title, I'll say belt, the fact I have to be me. And one of the quotes that was given to me in that meeting was, it's not broke. That's why we're buying it. And I thought, okay, then we're on the same page, you know, because I, I really wanted them to know I was not, you know, hey, I'm a grown up now. But I wanted them to know like I've done a few things here. I've got a good command of what I can do and what I cannot do and almost overcompensated and explaining that to people so that they get like, he's not to be trifled with these days, you know. And I played my cards that way, I suppose. And the next thing I know, there's like this three month Period. Where now I'm off, shockingly, have left this baby of mine, this thing that I really loved, to go back and go after the first dream I had in the business, which is what's been awkwardly sitting on my lap. Was that interaction with Vince when he's at your house. Different than every other interaction you've had with him, you know, growing up or even in the promotion the first time. No, he was always really. Again, I had a great experience, but because maybe it was respect for my family and not so much respect for me, so I was always treated with equality. I think this one maybe was different because I could talk to him about things that I had been educated on.

[Akash Singh]

You're a big boy now.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, like, I can talk to you about his shoes.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know what it's like to run a promotion.

[Cody Rhodes]

I can talk to you about a format. I can talk to you about this silly. We timed this. I can talk to you about the overhead on Bill. I can talk to you about a few of these things.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're not just an actor. You're a director. Director. You're a producer.

[Cody Rhodes]

Which is one of the quotes from my original run in wwe. I think it was Bruce Pritchard who told me this, but he said, you know, if you really get good at this job, you have to be your own wrestler, your own referee, your own commentator, your own cameraman. You have to know everything you're doing at all times. And these people with you have to know because then you'll be in control. And that was very much. It felt like one of those moments. I thought in that meeting I wasn't coming back, though.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, why?

[Cody Rhodes]

I thought in that meeting, it would be good to have a moment of. Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you. It feels good to be wanted. Feels great to be wanted and wanted by the place that helped raise me my. My home. But I thought I was still going to go out again. My plan. Looks like I had a plan. Everybody else. I was a total bluff. I didn't know what the plan was. You know, I certainly could have gone back at that point to Adam. Yeah. Yeah. We certainly could have figured that out and been fine. But. But I just. Something inside was pointing a different direction for me. I think it was the slide. I think it was the cake.

[Akash Singh]

It is really funny how you keep pretending it's not the money, which you got 15x what you got before. And you're like, I don't know what.

[Cody Rhodes]

Ethereal force was pulling me toward a.

[Andrew Schulz]

Spirit, a private banker.

[Akash Singh]

I have no idea.

[Cody Rhodes]

It's always a great call, though, when you can, like, for example, I get called Brandy. I was like, like, hey, this was. You gotta know what was just slid across on a piece of paper. You gotta know. And you know, just to my wife is, she's a stone. Very little breaks her. And it's fun when you can hear, like, wait, what? Oh, wow. You know, like, oh, yeah. And just we had to be really sure it was the right thing because remember, I'd left there not on the best of terms.

[Andrew Schulz]

So here's my curiosity. Are you getting pitched a storyline in that moment?

[Cody Rhodes]

No. So people think, no problem. People think there's a storyline. People think there's a contractual element.

[Andrew Schulz]

All you have is Seth Rollins, one.

[Cody Rhodes]

Match, WrestleMania, $1 figure. Wow. That's it. Under the idea that I would come in and be there for three years.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, okay, they have the rights to you for three years. After that, you get to take all your IP into wwe, which is kind of unheard of.

[Cody Rhodes]

Super complicated, too.

[Andrew Schulz]

Nobody can do that now.

[Cody Rhodes]

WWE's legal team.

[Andrew Schulz]

And there's Disney World, right?

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, my gosh.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, what? Wait, what do you mean?

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, no, just it was so complicated for them to be like, wait, he owns the song, but we don't, do we?

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, it was just because they're used to creating a character and then owning the ip, Even when those characters leave, they can't be their WWE version in other organizations. A lot of times today, you probably.

[Cody Rhodes]

Could, because Nick Khan and Triple H are kind and open to the idea that, yeah, go take that.

[Andrew Schulz]

But back in the day, it used.

[Cody Rhodes]

To be very much, hey, if your finisher was the Crossroads and it was named on our show, and Michael Cole was the first to say it, you have no claim to that whatsoever. Yeah, but I brought everything of my own into it. And just to see them have to work it out, to see them all have to kind of work hard legally, I thought, oh, that's cool. We're really kind of fun. They're, they're really doing everything they can to get this, to make this work.

[Andrew Schulz]

So take, Go, go out, go.

[Mark Gagnon]

One thing I don't understand about your time in AW as a vp, how come you couldn't challenge for the championship again? Like, who's ideal?

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, it's a great this. So I, I, that's a great question. I had done two full storylines that I would say I completely oversaw. One was with Chris Jericho for the championship, and Chris collaborated on that, offered hu to it, Tony as well. But that was like, here was my Week one, week two, week three, week four, I was terrified of winning the championship. Even though there's kind of these revisionist history. The last year I was a bad guy, they were. They were booing me left and right. But those first two years, and especially those first few months, I was the hottest thing they had. And that was a great spot to be in. But my fear was, if I win the title, I'm abusing.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're abusing your father.

[Cody Rhodes]

I'm the executive vice president, and my dad, who was the executive vice president and the executive producer of Jim Crockett Promotions, he had won the championship, and the people loved it. But later, the Meltzers, the different. I'm not knocking Dave by any means, but the industry journalists, that's something they looked at and they would judge and I would say, it's a huge mistake that I went that route because I was hot and the fans were happy.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, oh, huge mistake.

[Cody Rhodes]

So in my mind, I would. I didn't want to do it. And we put ourself in a situation where I can never challenge for it again. I remember it's wrestling, clearly. You can go back on it. And I told him, like, nope, this is a never go back on. I want to make. Make it clear. I want to make my stories just as big as the world title, which was a problem in itself. You might as well be world champion. But that story was the one I had a good control on. I'd look back at it and say, perhaps that decision was a mistake, but my heart was in the place of. I didn't want fans to think I'm going to abuse this position. Clearly, I'm juiced into the office and helping lead this forward. I didn't want them to think I was that. Even though probably from a creative standpoint, it would have been just fine.

[Mark Gagnon]

I thought I would pigeon hold you that you can never go for the title again.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. And once you're there, have a ceiling once you're there. I didn't realize how much of a ceiling that is for certain fans. To me, I thought, no, you'll be fine with. I'll do these really great stories that just don't revolve around the title. Wrestling. End of the day, sometimes it's not rocket science. It might just be about the title. You know what I'm saying? Like, and. And it's not about the S. But.

[Andrew Schulz]

They'Re having an end goal is exciting.

[Cody Rhodes]

To people 100% and.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. And knowing you can't ever get there, I think removes a little Bit of that journey.

[Cody Rhodes]

And the only way I could get there is by being a bad guy fully. Like, ah, screw that. I. That was a self imposed, you know, and I was.

[Andrew Schulz]

I understand that as the misstep. I do think not being able to get the title adds to your lore for what. You know what I mean? So I think, I think it worked out in the long run because we constantly are rooting, right, like, give this guy a chance. Why can't he get it?

[Cody Rhodes]

And then we're coming back to WWE again. It was all about the title. WrestleMania 39 in. In LA at SoFi, everyone's thinking, this is it.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is that. I want to get to that. So after 38, the Rollins match, like, I mean, there's just this awesome moment where he's standing there. He's kind of sitting there and like, does he know how long the delay is going to be?

[Cody Rhodes]

I don't think. I don't think Seth knew he was going to be in the ring that long.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think before the lights go out, he's there and then it looks like he's like. Then he starts going, stop making me wait. But he literally, I feel like he's going, guys, what the is. Yes, I'm making me wait.

[Cody Rhodes]

He said it. He 100 minute, let's go.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, and then the lights go out. Yeah. And then people, I feel, thought it might be you, but they didn't believe that it could be.

[Cody Rhodes]

To me, I didn't believe it could be.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

I just went out and did all this. Yeah. And also I was worried you're gonna boo me. Like, I started the. I started the other place with my buddies, and then we went head to head with NXT and really took a lot of shots. I mean, my first ple there, I smashed a facsimile of Triple H's throne just to let people know, hey, this is the direction I'm going. But when I walked out, it didn't matter to him. It was weird when I walked out at Mania, you can see for about 40 seconds, I am in a trance. I'm blown away that they're jumping. Like, not just cheering, but jumping up and down. I wanted that my whole life. I don't know. I haven't been in a WWE ring. They're different types of rings. I haven't even trained in a WWE ring. I haven't been one in eight years at this point or whatever. Just every step I'm in this trance and the feeling I got was just felt like the brother of our kid who was part of the family, hadn't been home, just walked back in the door. That's what it felt like. Like, young and old fans were like, nah, he's cool. He's cool.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's.

[Cody Rhodes]

He grew up here.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. You know, so you get the positive reaction from the fans. Do you, in that moment go, okay, I'm a face or you sore? Are you unsure of what you're gonna be like?

[Cody Rhodes]

So I. I'm. I'm forever unsure. So we starting this whole conversation like. Like, yes, 100% white me, baby face. I am forever unsure. And I tell people in charge that Triple H, who has been so good to me, I tell him this all the time. I say, hey, I don't have a good compass anymore because I don't know what's right, what's wrong, because I did it all now. I've gone around the spectrum. Maybe I do, and I don't admit it, but I feel like my compass isn't as great. So I rely on you. If you think this is the play, that's where the quarterback terminology came up. I'll run it. And the play hasn't been wrong yet. So I like going that strategy just because in that moment, I had lost a lot of my compass. Even that great reaction that moment, I still thought, well, this story will evolve. Seth has every right and every reason to gripe. He's been here waving the banner. One of the greatest ever do it. WrestleMania 40's MVP is Seth Rollins. He has every right to chew me up and spit me out on the mic. And I'd have to just take it. I'd have to just take it. And they just. Again, the fans didn't care. And, you know, a lot of little kid fans, they're not in. That's not their. They're not interested in it anyways. Not War and Peace. They just, you know, let's blow some stuff up and hit some cool moves, you know? Yeah. But, yeah, no, I was very lucky.

[Andrew Schulz]

Guys, this is very important. I. I need. We need to stress something right now. This is the last episode that comes out before the end of our democracy.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. I don't know who's gonna end it, but according to the Internet, no matter who wins, the democracy has ended.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yes. Maga. Yeah. Is done.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, you can't feel your girls cooked right. When CNN is fighting, we got.

[Cody Rhodes]

Bro.

[Andrew Schulz]

When cnn. When Anderson Cooper is out there struggling.

[Mark Gagnon]

The best. The best man or woman will win.

[Andrew Schulz]

Say again.

[Mark Gagnon]

The best man or woman will win.

[Cody Rhodes]

You mean that? No, dude, it's not looking good.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, it's not looking good.

[Cody Rhodes]

And Trump is on St. Rogies today.

[Andrew Schulz]

Apparently Trump is on Rogan today. We're recording this Friday. Let's see. We got to see it. When these things happen. Kamala was supposed to go on Rogan and then something happened. What do you think happened?

[Mark Gagnon]

Or she wants to stay in the battleground states where it actually matters because that's going to win her the election.

[Andrew Schulz]

That actually is a good point being that she's in Texas and specifically Houston and Austin this weekend.

[Mark Gagnon]

Maybe she's also.

[Andrew Schulz]

I love it when people because I.

[Mark Gagnon]

Do this all the time though.

[Andrew Schulz]

She's in Friday, she's in Houston. She's supporting the guy who's going up against Booger Lip, what's his name? Booger Cruz or whatever his name, remember? And. And then she's going to be in Austin as well. So she's there. She could literally go down the block and just make it happen.

[Cody Rhodes]

Also, who's ever not voted for someone because they don't spend more time in your state?

[Andrew Schulz]

You know I thought the same thing.

[Mark Gagnon]

But no, that shouldn't affect really if.

[Andrew Schulz]

It didn't affect it they wouldn't all be there.

[Cody Rhodes]

So what is the thinking like oh they weren't in my state for two weeks. You know, I don't get it.

[Mark Gagnon]

There's still people that are undecided sided. So it's like imagine you speak to somebody face to face. That might win you over. Does with this guy every time he meets a person.

[Andrew Schulz]

Prisoner of the moment.

[Mark Gagnon]

Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

Clink, clink.

[Cody Rhodes]

Why are you voting for Cody Rhodes, bro?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yo, I'm voting for honestly the Undertaker. That's what should happen like there. And the winner is Lights go out Undertaker there. Yeah, I don't know mean but listen, you can bet on it with stake if you want. You know. Put your money up. Put your money where your mouth is, bro. Put your money where your mouth is.

[Cody Rhodes]

Let's go.

[Mark Gagnon]

You put your money.

[Andrew Schulz]

Put your money's mountain.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's the president you're talking about.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's first of all the vice president. But what her mouth is is saying she's going to win. So put your money on her mouth.

[Cody Rhodes]

Why keep saying sounds weird. Put your money on her mouth. Why are you another saying that you're.

[Andrew Schulz]

Saying that people wouldn't put money on Donald's mouth.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm just saying some say that her mouth got her places.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wow, I can't believe you even think like that so close to election. You've been watching cnn CNN has turned into alt right news network.

[Cody Rhodes]

Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

CNN is an alt right news network.

[Cody Rhodes]

Unlike this show. Not this bias. Unbiased down the middle.

[Andrew Schulz]

No bias whatsoever. We're straight down the middle. Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

We just put our money on our.

[Mark Gagnon]

Does the heel turn becomes liberal?

[Cody Rhodes]

I'll be fine.

[Andrew Schulz]

There's a bunch of liberal over there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Fox, let's go.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, that's fire.

[Andrew Schulz]

Just so cocky over there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Soy boys.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, wait.

[Cody Rhodes]

So CNN's going face?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yo, CNN is going? Well, it depends how you view the world, Mark. But the fact that you just said that is. You think baby face.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, hell yeah. Hillary Clinton's gonna try to it, dude. Wait, what?

[Andrew Schulz]

That was a sexual joke about Hillary Clinton, bro.

[Cody Rhodes]

I'm sorry.

[Andrew Schulz]

That was a foreign first slave going, heel don't go heal, Mark. You go too far when you go heal.

[Cody Rhodes]

Sorry.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, you need to really reign it in. We just need to be calm, cool, collected.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, like out right now, it's calm, cool, and collected. Ready to take a L. I take no Ls. Do you really think that Kamala can win?

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I do.

[Cody Rhodes]

This is.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think she. Do you really think the person has a 50% chance of winning?

[Cody Rhodes]

Kobe think are running in this.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, I think Trump has a chance too, bro.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now you talking everyone's. I think you're so dumb. You say the most genius. Okay, Lloyd. Yeah. Y.

[Cody Rhodes]

Put money.

[Andrew Schulz]

More mouth, yo. I'm trying to put my money on Kama's mouth. I'm trying to put it on Trump's mouth, too.

[Mark Gagnon]

This is why we didn't get the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Combo into this or something.

[Mark Gagnon]

I think.

[Andrew Schulz]

So your jokes about her giving Felicia.

[Mark Gagnon]

I would never.

[Andrew Schulz]

You had jokes about that.

[Mark Gagnon]

I know. Yeah, I would never.

[Andrew Schulz]

What do you mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

I would never two minutes ago.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen, people take this show very seriously, bro. So we need to. We need to act. We need to act correct. We need to have a little more decorum.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you want to bet on this election, you're obviously doing with stake. Stake is the leader in global betting at US Social casinos. Bet on top sports and political events and use the promo code flake for your welcome bonus. Now, we could get back to the show, but right now I think we're kind of like, moving and grooving, talking about politics. Even though we should get right back to the show.

[Cody Rhodes]

Definitely.

[Andrew Schulz]

But there is a little fun, little political talk that we can have right now.

[Mark Gagnon]

You just like to see me get cooked in the comments. That's what you want. He knows what he wants.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm gonna be honest with you, the amount of engagement, I was shocked. And you lean in every single week. You try to piss them off. Whatever. They're upset. You dress like a child. China set.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, exactly. Trump's least favorite country.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly. You trying to ride him up in the comments every single day.

[Mark Gagnon]

Hey, you the elephant in the China.

[Cody Rhodes]

Shot right Now I'm about to destroy some.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's a bull, but I'm about. It was close. It was so close. I'm surprised.

[Cody Rhodes]

I got China Shop out. Good.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

[Mark Gagnon]

We got to get back to China.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right. We gotta get back. Yeah. What?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yellow shoes. Oh, nothing to say. I know why you say. Why'd you say I got nothing to say?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yellow shoes, Al. What do you think that. But I'm wearing them inside. Whose side am I? Right down the middle.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's what I am.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right down the middle.

[Cody Rhodes]

Just when you think I'm one of them.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's that? Oh, a 10.

[Cody Rhodes]

A yellow shoe. Yellow shoe. Shoe.

[Andrew Schulz]

A Timberland son. That's crazy.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, see, we got to get back to the show.

[Cody Rhodes]

So much. Why?

[Andrew Schulz]

Why? What just happened?

[Mark Gagnon]

You know, tell me.

[Cody Rhodes]

Too much synergy right there. Tell me.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, tell me. We can't.

[Cody Rhodes]

We can't.

[Mark Gagnon]

We can't tell the people.

[Andrew Schulz]

We can't tell people. No, the camp. Sure. With the honeybee on it.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, yeah, with the honeybee.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why? What's happening? Can you guys tell me? I feel like I don't know what's happening. I feel like I'm on the outside.

[Cody Rhodes]

You are on the outside.

[Mark Gagnon]

You are.

[Cody Rhodes]

Because me and Alex have already made thousands of dollars gambling on the future market.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, son.

[Cody Rhodes]

We up.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yo, put some money up, though. Put some money up.

[Mark Gagnon]

You put money up.

[Andrew Schulz]

I am putting money up.

[Mark Gagnon]

All right, I'll put money up.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, bet.

[Cody Rhodes]

So we really don't want to hang with our wives today, huh? Let's get back to the show.

[Andrew Schulz]

When do you get pitched the story storyline that at 39.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

You are finally going to wrestle for the belt. Right. And lose.

[Cody Rhodes]

It's weird how it went. I hope this doesn't ruin it for anybody, but this is a. We've peeled the curtain back here.

[Akash Singh]

We don't have any four year old fans.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

I bet you there's a four year old watching this. He's gonna be in the comments like, hey, no, I.

[Andrew Schulz]

But this is 39. They already know this happened. This is old news.

[Cody Rhodes]

It's really. I was told I'm winning the Royal Rumble and at the time, I Was rehabbing my pec. I was gonna be gone. I'd never been injured before and I had the pec injury. I'm out for a full seven. I could have come back at four. I could have come back at five. We really waited until the Royal Rumble for me to come back and tried to get in the best possible shape of my career.

[Andrew Schulz]

Real quick, you tear the peck. You still fight Seth Rollins again?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

If you want to pull up a picture.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, we'll make sure that they. You guys can put it up.

[Cody Rhodes]

It's pretty gross.

[Andrew Schulz]

I apologize, but it's blue all over. It's insane.

[Cody Rhodes]

The Dumbledore arm. Yes, yes. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

But I think it adds to the lure.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, it does, right?

[Andrew Schulz]

It's like this guy's actually earning. It's not just nepotism. It's not just a last name. He's actually earning his stripes. And it's a rare moment in wrestling where something real is happening in something fake. Do you know what I'm saying?

[Cody Rhodes]

To me, that's my whole story. Perhaps this is an artificial world. Perhaps, perhaps. But I'm real. I'm real. And this was a case of so many people were really cool to me about, like, I can't believe it. And I feel like, truthfully, anybody who's got a competitive spirit at all would have done it. I love that people are like, this is crazy. I can't believe you did it. But I just feel like there was a sold out crowd. There was all this interest in that ple via peacock that of course, they had told us about. Hey, we're 40% up on this. Hell in the seven. And it's Seth again, someone I have such a respect for. I just. Here's. Here's the part they don't know. Had somebody seen it? I made sure nobody saw it. The only person who saw it was a guy named Peaches who's the trainer at wwe. And Peaches, I, I think, wasn't under the impression I was wrestling. We'll tape you up.

[Andrew Schulz]

WWE doesn't even know that.

[Cody Rhodes]

They know I tore it. They know I tore it.

[Andrew Schulz]

But the, but the.

[Cody Rhodes]

And the doctor, the doctor, the doctor who had looked at it said, he can't hurt it any worse. It's gone. He has strength in his arms. It's gone. Because they did double check over and over, like, is this even possible that he can do it? They went through every little. They went to an outside doctor even, who ended up doing my surgery. Like, yeah, he's. He can wrestle at the end of the day.

[Andrew Schulz]

They're liable if you can't hurt.

[Cody Rhodes]

If I, if. If something happens. Right. And. And I just. But I kept my jack jacket on. I kept my jacket on the whole day. And I remember, like, Michael Hayes, who is a legendary producer at wwe, has been very helpful in my career, especially this latter half of it. But he. He asked to see it, and I started to unzip my jacket a little bit and he goes, no, no, save it, save it. No, no, no. So the first time. The first time everyone's seeing it is when the jacket gets unbuttoned.

[Mark Gagnon]

And at this point, it's healed enough for you to fight, but it still looks this bad.

[Cody Rhodes]

I mean, it's not healed at all.

[Akash Singh]

Like three days after.

[Cody Rhodes]

So this is. I have a progression of the bruising throughout. It was like a tiny bruise in my armpit and then it was coming down my arm, and then it just got bigger and bigger to the point where I thought, well, there's a lot of blood in there. The only thing that came of the match I was told again, could be a Cody lie, but it didn't come from me, was that when they opened me up on the table in Birmingham after the match and we got surgery immediately after, the blood squirted up, like for a prolonged long three or four seconds, not just the normal amount.

[Andrew Schulz]

Definitely Cody lie, but I love it.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's great.

[Andrew Schulz]

Huge fan of that.

[Cody Rhodes]

Blood squirted to the ceiling.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's still on the ceiling. Right?

[Cody Rhodes]

But yeah, that was, that was. I wasn't not going to do it. I had to this day.

[Andrew Schulz]

I. I'm fans really appreciate it.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. And if. If they weren't on the fence, like, if they were on the fence and weren't sure about me, I always say, like, it's a peck well spent that this was what they said. Like, yeah. Nah, he's cool. He's okay.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you keep on building this trust and appreciation in the fans and in these, like, real moments in this thing that everybody accepts that is fake. I think one of the. Sam Roberts, who's a awesome friend of mine.

[Cody Rhodes]

I hate Sam, by the way.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I'm sure you do.

[Cody Rhodes]

He's dead to me, right?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

He went on a whole rant about my title run. And he technically works for wwe. He's trying to play that line of like, nah, I'm independent. No, you're not. Sam. Not Sam. So I'm a Rosenberg guy right now because Sam's dead to me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Who's Rosenberg?

[Cody Rhodes]

Peter Rosenberg? I don't know that is, Peter does a radio show in New York and he also. Sam and him do our pre shows and our kickoff panels because they do have an element of, like, this is their own flavor. And they've been covering wrestling.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's cute. He's a wrestling guy.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. Oh, wow. Peter Rosenberg. He's really good. Doesn't say anything mean about me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

White meat guys.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Okay, so, so basically. Basically you have this situation where he says. What I thought was really interesting about. About wrestling is that, like, we know everything in life is fake. Right. We know politics is fake. People lie, whatever, but they pretend it's real. Wrestling is the thing that they admit is fake.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So we don't have to feel gaslit at all. We just get to have pure enjoyment in it. And then every once in a while in it, there are these real moments. Moments. And then the audience feel way more real. Way more real because it was supposed to be fake. So when you see the armpit, when you see the story, finish the story, when that is said for the first time. Who says it for the first time?

[Cody Rhodes]

Michael Cole.

[Andrew Schulz]

So Cole goes. He's here to finish the story.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yep.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now all of a sudden, the fans goes, holy. This is a real true story. He could finish the story. He could bring the belt to the Rhodes household. So now they're on board on something real within something they know is fabricated.

[Cody Rhodes]

I like fabricated. But do you see me wince every time?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I'm sorry.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, no, I. I don't mean it. No, no, no, I. So I never get. As a kid, that was like the. And my dad didn't smart me up to the business. So multiple fights, as in an elementary school where the. Hey, Cody got into a fight and why. Because Tommy said, you know, what his dad does for a living is the F word. And of course, my dad would not just help that. Instead, he had a weird three strike rule. Like, hey, tell him, you know, okay, next time, tell him, hey, that's how we make a living. Please leave me alone. Third time you just punch him in the nose. And he was like, always the nose. Which is a really violent thing for a kid to like, think about, like, punching a guy in the nose. But so the reason.

[Akash Singh]

Stomp your feet when you punch.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. Wind up the big roundup. Crossroads. It's not that when people use the word, it doesn't bother me, but for me, and I mean this in the utmost sincerity, I always tell people it's 100% real. And what I mean to like, extrapolate on it. What I mean, is. Whatever I do tonight in Barclays, by the way, or whatever I do at any show, if I see a dad with his son, if I see a family, if I see casual fans, this is their first time. Their experience is real. That's why that's always worked for me. And, like, their experience is real. And yes, every now and then, wrestlers get super defensive about it. You've seen so many, like, news. News interviews go. Gone wrong. I broke my neck for this, you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Know, like, I mean, the David Schultz one, right? Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

I slapped him pretty hard, too.

[Andrew Schulz]

Knocked him down.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. I never. I never get mad at it as much as it's just for me, me, like, maybe I'm different in our world where it's just because I'm not playing anything but myself. It just feels as real as anything else.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think one of the best things that happened to wrestling is for the public to. To know that it is. What. What is the word? Fab? Predetermined. Because now we can submit ourselves to the fun and focus on these storylines.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And the storylines are what always would drive it, in my opinion. Whereas before, you could be like, oh, this is. I. I mean, I have video of this. I don't even know if I can share this because my wife will be embarrassed. We were watching the VIN stock, and my wife is, like, kind of on her phone overhearing it, and she goes, wait, it's fake. This is like, two weeks ago.

[Cody Rhodes]

Got her.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is two.

[Cody Rhodes]

Got her weeks ago.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

Video. I don't even know.

[Andrew Schulz]

She goes, wait, what do you mean? I go, what did you think was happening?

[Cody Rhodes]

I don't blame her at all.

[Andrew Schulz]

You think there's a guy named the Undertaker who just comes back to power?

[Mark Gagnon]

I get it, though, because I remember being a kid and then someone, you know, making me feel like Santa Claus isn't real. That moment with wrestling. But I'm so invested that even after, I'm like, nah, some of it's real. I'm like, some of it is.

[Andrew Schulz]

It liberates the art, though. It makes it, I think, so much more special, is you get to focus. Instead of trying to focus on convincing people that this thing is 100% real, you get to focus on convincing what they're them, what they're feeling is real.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Forget what they're seeing. I don't care if the punch lands when that person comes out or you hear that music for the first time or this story is actually realized, that's the reaction you're going to get.

[Cody Rhodes]

Shawn Michaels is Really good. And he heads up NXT now. And I'm, I'm blown away by the next generation of wrestlers, all going to be the best ever because they're being trained by Shawn Michaels. But he always was of the thought that if they think that match that went on second or third wasn't real, or if they feel disconnected from it, I'm going to find something in mine that makes them think like, oh, no, everything else that was fabricated, that was artificial. Everything else but that he was mad. He really, Sean is the master of that. And I wish more wrestlers. And again, it's a hard skill set to make, but there's so many. If you look at Sean's career, there's all these matches where you'll see stuff like, oh, I heard they were really having a problem with this. I heard there was a behind the scenes. No, he was that good to make you think. I mean, every, like the greatest again, when the lie, you know, when the fact becomes legend, print the legend. But Sean is really special at doing that. Really special.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, so you get this. At what point are you pitched the storyline of winning the Royal Rumble and then losing to Roman?

[Cody Rhodes]

So it was never said. It was never said you'll be winning or losing. And I think.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, against Roman or.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, the discussion was something that. Those discussions happened within days of WrestleMania.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you're constantly reacting to what the audience wants. And not by you, I mean like the writing team.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, I mean, we have the. Again, I don't know, like, we have the greatest focus group every week. It's a literal live audience that it's. You know, one of the things I talked with Bert about on the set of Go Big show was, was he would find that there was this parallel between pro wrestling. And he'd try these jokes out and try these bits out and he'd know where they landed, what landed. He'd build, do his big finish, all this. And it's very similar in terms of every week we have them to. We want to lead them for sure. But also every now and then they'll yank you like, nah, we're not into that. That's not it. And it's a nice balance. They are playing the backup to you. If you're the lead singer, they're right there. It's very different from any other artistic medium that there is in terms of they. We depend on them. Covid wrestling is the worst. It's the worst.

[Andrew Schulz]

There were no fans.

[Cody Rhodes]

There might have been good stuff that happened, but none of us will ever want to Go back and watch it. Nobody.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's hard to predict what they want, what they feel.

[Cody Rhodes]

You need that live audience. They're the lifeblood. And right now WWE is in this unbelievable renaissance where these crowds are absurd. We were talking about 10,000 for all in and how special that was. Now we're dealing with Every show is 10 plus every. Like I, I, you know, again. And don't take it for granted. Who knows when it's going to end. But they're a really great metric to determine they're the number one. More than, you know. The guy who trained me, his name's Al Snow. I remember him telling me, he's like, you can get over with your boss and that's cool. That'll get you places. But you could also get over with the people and that'll get you everywhere. And I love. Because that's honest.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, like great.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. I didn't have to politic or be your buddy, but, you know, know I play the game a little bit, but if the people are vibing, we're good. You'll, you'll. I'm going to move forward. But yeah, those discussions happen within days.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you win real rumble. You don't know if you're going to realize this dream, if you're going to finish the story at 39.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. And I don't even mean to give this answer is going to sound like a Cody lie, but this is a true answer. We didn't really know for sure what we were doing until hours before that match.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you talk to Roman? Does H come in and talk to you guys? Like, what that was.

[Cody Rhodes]

That was one where that's again, you call the. That's triple H in terms of you. You lead the charge. That's not something he or I can determine. Roman or I or Mr. Heyman. That's that. He is, he is directing this film.

[Andrew Schulz]

Are you fucking heartbroken? Like, I did everything to get here. We can give the fans what they want. You're going to take that away from me.

[Akash Singh]

What are you feeling before that even, like when you're not sure what's going to happen? What's that whole process?

[Cody Rhodes]

I think I went to a place in my mind and maybe I was feeling really positive. Maybe I had experienced enough heartbreak in the business business to not be heartbroken again. But what it became was I truthfully told myself and I had a really good individual step in and speak to me about this. I told myself, great, I'm still going to be the champion. I'm going to be the Champion for the next year because Roman had select dates and he had done the full time schedule before. So he earned his select dates. But he's not there every week. I will be there every week. I'm at every live event, every house show, everybody, every tour, every appearance. I'm everywhere. So I'm going to be the champion of WWE without the title. And that became the task. And the hardest part of the task was they care so much now. No way. With the attention spans being will they care at 40? No way. I know you think you're wrestling him at 40, but no way can you get there. And then of course, the greatest hurdle of all hurdles, right when it does look like no, we're going won the Royal Rumble again. Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, here are back to back Rumble winners. I won it twice. Pointed at Roman. We're going. This is as real as real gets. And the Rock shows up. And that may be. I don't want to use the term heartbroken, but that might be the most dejected for a moment.

[Andrew Schulz]

Explain what happens when the Rock comes in. I can't believe we've jumped over getting. Getting you. Building you back up after 39. Like you got to go in with Brock. They have to design a way to make people believe. No, he can go after it. You have these legendary matches with Brock. So Brock, what gives you the rub, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

He very much so.

[Cody Rhodes]

He very much puts you over three. Three with him. Again, like the F word is terrifying when discussing him because that's like if. Basically if you. If we all left this room and you stood in there, we're like, all right, man, we're sending in a bear. See if you can just get behind the bear. Just get behind the bear. That's like what wrestling Brock was like. Just see if you can get. Just if you can grab him. Just grab him once for 10 points.

[Andrew Schulz]

Kicked you in the stomach once. That looked very buddy. Did you feel so. Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

I like the lore of him is that he is. Is the most. Just crazy outrageous strong greatest athlete. He could end anybody in a moment. Yeah, I'll ruin it for some. His professionalism is so underrated.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, wow.

[Cody Rhodes]

He is. He is one of, if not the most professional and understanding of what we wanted. What. And I. He sent me some of his. He. He has a farm in Canada. I. I hope. Hope you're not mad at me for sharing this, but he sent me an entire cow worth of steaks and he took a picture. He took a picture of himself with the cow because he does it all He's a real farmer.

[Andrew Schulz]

Love it.

[Cody Rhodes]

So I thought this is the. What, a what? Just a legend? But, yeah, no, he was the utmost professional with me. I was. I was. I was blessed to have been in that role. And again, like, the bear conversation about, I. I had to find something, you know, like, he's not giving anything easily. And that's the bad. The best guys don't give anything easily.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they put you against the meanest, baddest dude.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

The audience sees you in these battles, they start to support you again. You know that you have to show out in these.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, you have to show out more than you did because now they're seeing you every. Like I said, there's a downside to seeing you every week, too.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's right. We get used to you.

[Cody Rhodes]

We really. This is our. And I just. They stayed in it all the way. Including winning the Royal Rumble. Having gone through matches with Brock, Jay USO and I had formed a partnership, and that was the first little tease that we might go to Roman again. And then Roman WrestleMania 40. And the next thing you know, that's when Rock showed back up. And that was a match a lot of fans had wanted a seat for a long time.

[Andrew Schulz]

So Rock says, what? When he throws the wrench, he comes.

[Cody Rhodes]

Out, well, the way we designed it. And now I'm. Everyone blames me for this, and. But I thought. I thought I'd done the best I could. I was still going to wrestle Roman, but it wasn't going to be a WrestleMania, so I was going to do just the handoff amongst myself. And, you know, Rock is revered. Who doesn't love the Rock? And. And it was Birmingham, Alabama. And I went out and said, hey, I am coming for that title, but not at WrestleMania. One of the guys, I took counsel with this guy. We didn't really say he's going to be a WrestleMania home, but we clearly framed it up. Rock's music hits, the place loses their minds. Birmingham, Alabama's going bananas. And him and I had an embrace. He told me something super sweet in my ear. I'm sure he doesn't mind me sharing, even though we're not best buddies, but he. He said, we're going to make both our dads proud. And I, like, smiled for a brief moment.

[Akash Singh]

And then he stole the title from me.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, then I left. And for some reason, I'm not blaming anyone for production. They kept filming me, like, guys, I'm not going to be like, go get him. You know what I'm saying? Like, I didn't have a face. So I got kind of like a resting B face. Like, it's just everyone judged and picked apart every. Like his. He's heartbroken. He's dejected. And I guess I was. But also, I didn't want them to know that. And I did this thing where. Gorilla position, which is the. Right before you go out the backstage position. I didn't want anyone to see me like that. So this might have been. I skipped around it and went right to my bus. Just. I had told Triple H and everybody, hey, I'm just gonna be private. I don't want to have a meltdown. I don't want to have a moment. That's it. They're going there. They're going there. When they film me on my bus after this documentary. Because WWE films everything. @ any point, a story could be taking place. You know, when they film me, I'm sitting there with a giant bottle of Wheatley vodka. And that's because Wheatley sponsors the bus. And we do a podcast with Wheatley. It's not. Cause I was drinking this bottle just straight up. But the way it looks is like all that was missing is, like, me eating pizza over the sink. It's just like. It was just a.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's called a Cody lot.

[Cody Rhodes]

It was a sad image. It was a sad image. Yeah. And then. That's the point.

[Andrew Schulz]

What does the audience do when the.

[Cody Rhodes]

Rock says craziest thing that's ever happened? And so here's the best part about it. In. In my mind, I'm thinking, what can I do? Right? What can I do? Should I pursue being angry about this? What can I do? Should I just move on to the next thing? At this point in my life, I think I just need to be a professional. It's a rare moment of maturity. Like, no, I'm. They've got some plan. I'm going to go with their plan. And almost defeated. And now I hate thinking of myself thinking that way. Almost. My wife is like, burn it down. You know, I love that. But I did nothing. And there's little movement started. And I say little movement because it was just a social media thing. At first. It was just this we want Cody thing on social media.

[Andrew Schulz]

I thought live. They even reacted to it.

[Cody Rhodes]

So that's where it became.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Cody Rhodes]

The we want Cody thing was happening online. The video of them becoming WrestleMania opponents had the most dislikes. There's these little metrics, but in my.

[Andrew Schulz]

Mind, being Roman Reigns and the Rock, right? So they set up this match.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, in my mind. And I Thought digital and social is where people go to complain anyway. So maybe it's just that then first night on Monday Night Raw, live in the arena there in St. Louis is where Seth of all people is talking about the Rock. And that was where the boos came in. People started booing and that's where we saw all the we want Cody signs. And I mean had this been a marketing plan, it would have been genius. But it wasn't.

[Andrew Schulz]

It was completely organic.

[Cody Rhodes]

It was a real thing provided by, by the fans. And it's over the course of that week that it could have really emboldened me. But I was still of the thought like, guys, as sweet as this is.

[Andrew Schulz]

Nothing we can do.

[Cody Rhodes]

There's nothing we can do. It's done. I have to find it's done. And then I feel comfortable sharing all this because we, we have the behind the Curtain WrestleMania documentary. But it is Rock and Triple H who decided, okay, we're going to go with him. Oh, wow, now we're going to go with. We're going to go with Cody. They want that. We're going with him.

[Andrew Schulz]

Important variable in this story. And this is where wrestling has these real moments.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

A few months before that, the Rock gets named to the TKO board of directors.

[Cody Rhodes]

He's the director of the board.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's the director of the board. TKO is the company that owns WWE and ufc. So the perception of the Rock is no longer just this wrestler. He's. What is it now? The final boss.

[Cody Rhodes]

I mean he's the boss. And then he became the final, the final boss.

[Andrew Schulz]

But he's the a boss and a boss swooping in, using his power position to take away the opportunity from a hard working guy that has truly earned it. And the people reject that. They're like, fuck, I've been in that situation where the fucking boss takes this opportunity or hire some random friend instead of me and I'm busting my ass at this company. So the people project the Rock in this new position. I wonder if the Rock is just a wrestler, how they react. But seeing him in his power position, abusing his power creates this empathy and like desire for you to fulfill the audience's dream.

[Cody Rhodes]

Ironically, a smart thing you didn't do, Eddie, is react at all.

[Andrew Schulz]

Let them react.

[Cody Rhodes]

So I in his, you know, again, not the best, best of buddies. But in his defense, I think Rock has become so busy, the amount of stuff, his output is incredible. Like his work ethic, his output. I don't think he knew so much about the current landscape. He knows that Company backwards and forwards. It's company that he. I mean, the show's called Smackdown because he said that word. He had set the table for everybody. But I don't think he was always keeping an eye on the table. And I think over the course of that week. And I could be wrong again. I'm so glad that he did say CEO. Oh, okay, that's bigger. He leaned in. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

He called your fans the Cody Crybaby.

[Cody Rhodes]

He went on Pat McAfee called them Cody Crybaby and then not just turned into a bad guy. A lot of people thought, oh, we're getting Hollywood Rock back. Hollywood Rock was one of his great iterations. No, he went a whole nother way with the final boss, which again, in our world of suspension of disbelief, is not remotely unique. Untrue. He is the boss. He dictates the shots. And yeah, I'm glad that's a byproduct of the WrestleMania 40 situation, because it was a mess. That week was a mess. At that point, anything could have happened. One of those lists could have showed up back on social media again. Anything could have happened. The world was. I didn't know. I wanted to be mature. I wanted to be different. Hey, I told you guys, I'm different. But also, I was just. I was in my mind, getting more reckless, getting more, you know. No, I did earn it this time. I did. And again, it's entertainment. But it just felt like WrestleMania is a super Bowl. Imagine you're the team and you win every game and you're supposed to go to the super bowl. And it's like. No, that's the part where I just. I couldn't understand, like, so what is my plan? Because I can't understand this one. Because winning the title may be the second hardest thing in the business. The hardest thing is main eventing WrestleMania. That's. That's like getting elected into the highest office in our business. Just a very big task. And I'd done it once and was so proud. But again, greedy. I wanted number two and I wanted to finish. Yeah. Number one was Empire Strikes Back. Let's get to Jedi. You know what I'm saying? Let's finish this. And it was a tricky week.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you devised this thing where you and of all people, Seth Rollins, my guy, have this tag team match against the Rock and Roman Reigns.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then you end up fighting Roman, of course. But the winner gets to decide what that fight is going to be.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, it was if. If the. If final boss and Roman one, it would go into bloodline. Rules. Which just means there's no rules.

[Andrew Schulz]

No rules. Which is awesome.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yes.

[Mark Gagnon]

You said this twice. You and the Rock aren't the best of friends. Like, you guys have some beef behind the scenes.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, I just. I just. I think when a situation like that happens and it's very real about.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Hey, the fans have made a choice.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

And, you know, it's very real. I think there's just a lingering. A lingering tension perhaps.

[Akash Singh]

And he's probably used to being. He's been universally loved for decades straight.

[Cody Rhodes]

I universally love him.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm.

[Cody Rhodes]

I grew up.

[Andrew Schulz]

There also might be some wrestling going on here.

[Akash Singh]

Al.

[Cody Rhodes]

I grew up.

[Andrew Schulz]

I grew up around.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, I. I sincerely.

[Andrew Schulz]

Storytelling happening.

[Cody Rhodes]

I grew up. I grew up, man. I say that's a realist.

[Andrew Schulz]

Fabricate. You never know.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think I'd like to be. But the reason I might say that is because I'd love to. We have yet to debrief on WrestleMania and what happened because I bet you his story is a little different. I feel like there's probably people like, no, they're definitely. You're their guy. They're going with you. They're going. I think maybe some bad advice came or maybe didn't get a good knowledge of, hey, here's the current layout. Here's who's sitting at that table. But I'd love that one day if we can ever have this little debrief. Just to explain, because I never wanted to do anything. Anything in secret. I never wanted to do anything behind the scenes because truth is, when that happened, you start thinking, oh, I could. What if I told such and such this story? No, no, you can't. You know, I got very defensive. It's crazy.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm in that moment. He was the people's chill.

[Cody Rhodes]

Rock has. Rock has that. That people's Champ title, too. It's. It's very popular in the locker room as people. Because it's. It's his title. Like.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, you might.

[Cody Rhodes]

Might need to fight for that one.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. Okay. So the main event happens. You guys fight. Seth plays this pivotal role. I thought this was like, great storytelling.

[Cody Rhodes]

His knee completely shredded, too.

[Andrew Schulz]

No way.

[Cody Rhodes]

If you watch it in slow mo when he gets hit with a chair. Have you ever had, like, mcl, pcl, acl, any of that? Your knee wobbles. Yeah. So when he falls on the rope, his knee literally wobbles horizontally. It's absurd. His knee was toast. Oh, really? Yeah. That guy's the man. Man. Dude. No.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. The matches with you and him are great because. And I wonder if this happens naturally. The more you wrestle with somebody, the better the chemistry. Yeah, it's a rep. Yeah, yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

The first time you wrestle with somebody, you hit each other square in the face like, buddy, how are we doing this on a regular basis? Yeah, no, it's when you're in there with someone who's as good as him, then you have the best dancing partner on Earth. You can feel where they want to go. You don't have to. Dad train him. Yeah, my dad trained Seth to a degree. Helped them with promos. He was their promo coach and character coach at nxt. So it was him, Roman, Becky, Sammy, Kevin Owens. And they all had this name that I effing hated, which was Dusty's kids. Because I'm thinking, like, weird, that kid. It's weird because, like, I'm his son, you know, like. But yeah, no, I. I got over that after a while. I've. All of them have now been told, like, I hated this, by the way, guys, you know.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. Because sleep is very important, okay? I mean that sincerely. I know how important it is because I haven't gotten any of it in about eight and a half months, ever since my wife brought our beautiful baby girl into this world. I would love to get some sleep. Okay, how do you maximize sleep? How do you maximize the amount of sleep time that you have? Okay, eight Sleep has figured it out. Eight as in the number eight sleep. Their buzzworthy sleep technology is called the pod. Let me just explain this, okay? It is so important when you're sleeping that the temperature of your body is regulated. And they've basically figured out some people make these mattresses. They even have a mattress option. The problem is most people aren't going to buy a brand new mattress without trying. And it's uncomfortable thing for them to get into. They've developed a sheet that does all of that. 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So if you head to 8sleep.com flagrant and use the code flagrant, you're going to get $350 off the pod for Ultra. That's 8sleep.com flagrant and Use the the code flagrant to get $350 off the pod For Ultra. 8 Sleep currently ships to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. All right, guys, we got a big announcement. You know, last year, flagrant coll extra. The best wallets in the game, number one, without a doubt. And we had that flagrant extra wallet. Absolutely. Just a, just a dripper. I know that sounds like a wrestling move. It's not. It's literal vaginas dripping all over the street. It's a problem. There are some like flood areas. Like what do they call them? Like, I think Red Hook, Brooklyn is like a flood zone. Right. And there was a thing where they were banning the extra wallets because there were these girls that would just puddle up these sections of Red Hook. I mean, the buses couldn't even stop. 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We might need winter to get down down into like the 20s or even teens to freeze up all that coochie juice. That's, you know, ever in red hook. The point that I'm trying to make is while those are crazy wet, you might need those boners that are only delivered by bluechew. And they got the blue chew tray. The blue chew tray perfectly fits your blue chew as part of the extra wallet. I cannot tell you how genius we are. It might have been the smartest thing. See, a lot of people do, you know, they'll create a cultural phenomenon, right? They'll have women literally drained out on the street. They think these girls are zombies because there's no water left in their body. But they're like, now what do we do? Oh, we'll just leave it there. We'll just have the vaginas be super wet all around us. Shucks, not us. We're going to fill up those things that you got. Slip and sliding. It's time to try the number one rated smart wallet in the world. Stop fumbling for cards and never lose your valuables again. Try risk free for 100 days. For a limited time, get 30% off your Extra Flagrant collab wallet@partner xter.com flagrant with the code FLAGRANT. That's partner.extra.com flagrant. Now let's get back to the show. I mean, the storyline is great. Seth comes on, he stands up. Roman has to make this decision, right, between pinning you or taking out Seth.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And Roman has been so disciplined, right. This guy's been on a like a reign of terror. It's just amazing. Amazingly methodical. Wasn't always loved. Like they really tried to like shove him down the fans throats initially as like a hero. And I think anytime the WWE like tries to make somebody here, the fans naturally reject it. They're like, you're not going to tell us who to like kills at his heel. Unbeatable. Makes the decision to go hit the one up in this rain the one time he gets emotional. So Seth in a way creates this opportunity for you. Great storytelling.

[Cody Rhodes]

Also a throwback to Seth had hit Roman with the chair when he left the shield. So this is a.

[Andrew Schulz]

And Seth is dressed in the shield. Like there's all these forms braiding together. Beautiful. You do the finisher, you do the crossroads three times, then you pin him. And then as the 1, 2, 3 is being said, the guy was announcing.

[Cody Rhodes]

It was Sam Michael Cole.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, it was Cole.

[Cody Rhodes]

Cole. Cole. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Finish.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, yeah. Cole was ready.

[Andrew Schulz]

Story. I mean, yeah, it's like everybody's storyline came to this perfect ending in that moment. Even Cole's right. He Starts this finish the story idea and then he counts it out. There's a. There's a moment where I think, who's it? Stephanie that's calling. What happened?

[Cody Rhodes]

Samantha Irvin. The Samantha. So sorry.

[Andrew Schulz]

Samantha. Her voice cracks.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. She was crying.

[Andrew Schulz]

She's like. It's. This is real within fabrication. This is the real moments you're looking for within what is orchestrated. She's getting. She's like visibly or like auditorily.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, yeah. They had to mention it because she was shaking on. Her voice was shaking and she has a booming announcing voice.

[Mark Gagnon]

She's great. Yeah, her announcing is awesome.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Samantha. Sorry. But it was like this beautiful moment.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

What happens? What is the feeling?

[Cody Rhodes]

I'll tell you a fun thing that happened that I don't know if I've shared this, but is one of the most magical. Again, the artificial world. What's real? One of the most magical things I've ever seen is the Undertaker showing up to chokeslam the Rock and match.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

So in the moment, I'm laying in the corner and a blackout on TV isn't always a blackout in the arena. There's kind of your eyes adjust. So I see this man, who is older now in his life and hasn't done this in it, roll in the ring at a speed like a wild animal, like, roll in the ring like, oh my God. And Undertaker's huge. So just the athleticism and this roll is so. I'm totally in the dark and then I see him stand up. Then I feel the lights come up. And now the whole world knows he's in there. And they have their moment and he choke slams the rock. And kind of as the sheriff of WWE shows up and makes something, something right. But then no one sees this. He looked over at me and I think he wanted us to have a moment. But I was still reeling from this whole match. So I'm just kind of in no man's land. Not really looking. There is no like clear cut camera shot. But he looked at me and just literally just, just went and winked. And as soon as he winked, I kid you not, the lights went out and he escaped. And I thought, like, he's magical. You know, he did it. It was so unbelievable. And then after the chair shot, there's like the brief moment I saw John. So Cena's got his back to the wall. He had been part of it. He's on the floor, he's staying small. As we say, when like you kind of. You can't get out of the arena. So you're still out there. And I got to make eye contact with him. And this is his spot. This is his spot that Roman has now. And any minute now, it could be my spot. And to have that moment with him was. I don't know what he was thinking, but in my mind I was hoping there was a belief that I could do it and just, hey, I wasn't wrong about this kid. He actually went and got it. But those were all very real moments. Charles Robinson, legendary referee, he had tears in his eyes again. Going from WrestleMania 39, where I'm looking at this dejected fan, fan base and trying to make eye contact with as many of them as I can, basically saying, like, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be all right. It's gonna be cool. Things happen. You know, it doesn't always end the way we want to be able to have that, like, celebration and euphoria. And it was like, unlike any other celebration. The closest I could think of is, like, WrestleMania 10 where all the guys came down and put bread on their shoulders and here's, here's. Guys don't ever like helping each other out. By the way, if you ask somebody to be in a lumberjack match or do a pull apart, nobody wants to know. I want to be part of your segment. Yeah. For them to want to be part of it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wow.

[Cody Rhodes]

And like, Randy is out there. Randy. Randy doesn't roll out of bed for anything. For him to come out and put me up on his shoulders. I like, it's all. What you're seeing is all 100 real in that moment. And that was just. I don't rate it as like, hey, what's your top three matches? Because it wasn't. I don't think of it that way. And it's. And I've never watched it back. I've never watched it back fully. I never watched it. No. The Undertaker winked at me. I don't want to see it. Not wink at me. I want my memory of it. Print the legend. Print the legend for sure. So I, I remember it that way. And it was just, just, just the wildest great. Like, it sets the stage for WrestleMania 41. Because we have to do that every time. Yeah, right. It sounds unrealistic, sounds undoable. But that's, that's why I was in Allegiant Stadium this week for the on sale. And I'm thinking, thinking, like, what do we do? Yeah, what do we do? You know? And like, Hunter's the same way. Like, what do we do next?

[Andrew Schulz]

Also very different landscape because Roman is your buddy.

[Cody Rhodes]

I don't know, buddies or anything.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's a face now. He's a face.

[Cody Rhodes]

But is he his. I got to tell him something for the first time. I got to say something to him for the first time. Because you'd be shocked. If you came backstage, you'd be like, are they. Are they wrestling me right now? Like, is this because we. We just don't have any interaction.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, really?

[Cody Rhodes]

We don't. It's not. There's nothing. I'm not saying anything negative about him. He. I've never heard him say anything negative about me. We understand where we play at in this world. But I did get to tell him one thing before Bad Blood in Atlanta, which is, to me, like, I didn't. It's the thing every wrestler wants to hear, which was thank for the house. Because that's. I mean, tickets were really good for Atlanta. We had sold out, but then we sold out again. You know, just because you open up, you open up, you open up. When he was introduced to the Fray. So I got that moment. I got nothing back. Which. Which. Which, you know, it's a unique relationship. Everyone, thank you for.

[Akash Singh]

He did the house.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, I thought the tickets were. I was. I'll be honest. Maybe I was waiting for thank you for the house. But no, it's. It's fine. It's. He's incredibly special and done so much for wwe, and when people get on to him about the limited dates and stuff, they don't realize he. Like, he was the thing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

For. He did all this. He's earned every. Everything he's got right now.

[Andrew Schulz]

So.

[Akash Singh]

Sorry, what's a Not limited date schedule to let people know how much y'all are really going at it? Because I don't think people get.

[Cody Rhodes]

I'm home two days this month. Two days.

[Akash Singh]

And you're wrestling wrestling.

[Cody Rhodes]

Because we did a full tour, so we did five, you know, five matches overseas, maybe two TV matches wrestling. Far less than you're actually out on the road. If you're not doing that, you're doing a promo if you're not doing that, to meet and greet if you're not doing that. So on sale. All stuff. We used to call it the John Cena schedule. It's all stuff. You just want to go out when you. When you hold the. The North Star to the game. You want to go out and represent it the best you can. Can. And, you know, that's. Thankfully, my. My wife came from the business.

[Andrew Schulz]

She gets it.

[Cody Rhodes]

She gets it. And man, if she didn't, she gets it. Plus, you know, if. Whenever she wants to come on the road and everything like that.

[Mark Gagnon]

But yeah, you said you haven't spoke to Roman. You guys never squashed the beef when you were in. Aw. Like the tactical NV comments and the tweets.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, that was even pre. I don't think. No, we've never talked about any of that. Other two comments conversations. I've wrestled this guy at two WrestleManias. Two conversations. One telling him that I was coming on board and I was looking forward to it and maybe even apologizing about that and just saying, hey, the times were real. Yeah. And then the other was, thank you for the house. Yeah. It's. It feels like there's some wrestling going on. You would be shocked. I. I wish more people come backstage and see just how real some of these relationships are. Your relationship with Seth, your relationship with Roman Reigns, it's very unique environment. It really is. And I think it's the best environment because right now, WWE is doing the best business it's ever done. So if this tension and this competitive, we want it. You want it. I got whatever is good for business. I'm about it.

[Akash Singh]

You hear about this with actors sometimes. Like, I hear this story that Meryl Streep, who plays like this giant bitch in Devil Wears Product.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. Really nice.

[Akash Singh]

And Hathaway, the first time she meets her and then she goes, I need you to know this is the last time I'm going to be nice to you for the next nine months.

[Cody Rhodes]

I.

[Akash Singh]

She says she complimented her, like, I think you're great. I think you're awesome. Also, I'm not going to be nice to you at all off camera. On camera. I'm barely going to speak to you for the next nine months. Just letting you know, great movie.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, great movie, too. Yeah. No, that's. If that's the way you go into it, that's the way you go into it. Yeah. Understood.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. That's interesting.

[Cody Rhodes]

So you have to kind of commit.

[Andrew Schulz]

To the character and idea.

[Akash Singh]

I think when we. We say, that's why I get why you guys bristle. And when people say it's fake, I do think it underplays the talent you guys have as athletes. You do put your body through a lot.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

And also the character development and storytelling you guys have to do is insane. It's on par with any actor, comedian. Like, it's. It's really impressive.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, he gave it the big. The big high compliment. Highbrow.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

I grew.

[Cody Rhodes]

I grew up In a neighborhood where, you know, I was talking about being a little kid, where people didn't look at it that way. Yeah, they look. They look down. Like, I always refer to my family in my neighborhood as, like, we were the Adams family. There was just. They thought we were unique and weird and like, there wasn't enough wrestling fans in that neighborhood to be like, no, these.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is awesome.

[Cody Rhodes]

These guys are cool, you know? And my dad, didn't help matters, used to go to the pool and his trunks and Ray Bans that barely fit his head. Yeah, it was 300 something pounds. And I, I remember you got on this diving board and he literally, I think, did it just to show the neighbors and did this, like, picture perfect dive up, down, got out of the pool, went and sat there, ordered pizza. Like, he always made a scene of himself. And I thought, okay, mowed the grass. Randy Oregon in his trunks as well. The Addams family thing was probably pretty accurate. We were unique, you know, Unique family.

[Andrew Schulz]

The grass in his trunks is so good.

[Cody Rhodes]

So pre the generation of tanning beds, every wrestler under the sun would find an excuse to take their shirt off. Whether they were in shape, not in shape, you had to be tan. That was like a thing. So a lot of these old school wrestlers, if there's one thing that happens outside for five minutes, you'll turn around and like, Arne Anderson's got his shirt off. Like, what are we.

[Andrew Schulz]

What are you doing?

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, tan. The tan. Come on, man.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, I was, I was watching a lot of, you know, just clips in general. And there's something I, I picked up on there. The. There's the high flying, like, acrobatic moves. Yeah, right. And I don't know if those are as satisfying as, like, the moves that kind of tell a story.

[Cody Rhodes]

Sure.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you were talking about the Undertaker chokeslam.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

To me, that is cooler than someone doing like a triple backflip and whatever. And I'm trying to understand why that is. You know, you go.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think it's so. I'm of the belief it's both. I love.

[Andrew Schulz]

Especially when you can do both.

[Cody Rhodes]

You can do both, but there's some.

[Andrew Schulz]

That are too acrobatic.

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, if you just do so again. The guy who trained me, Al Snow, he said, I love fireworks. We go see fireworks once a year. It's awesome. Fireworks once, twice a year, whatever it may be. He would look at high spot wrestling, the bigger flips, we call them high spots, really crazy stunts. And he'd say, they're fireworks. It's not that they're not good, but if there's no attachment to them, has to be an attachment to them. So this is the big argument that wrestlers have like a lot of young and Gen Z and I have a wrestling school in Georgia and I find this with a lot of the kids, they want to do all the crazy stuff and I don't want to be the old curmudgeon. So I don't discourage. Do it, do it all. But please also work on how you speak. Work on what that character might be. Open yourself up because if you do the moves, make them worth it. Make them worth it. If you do this really crazy move that could risk your neck and your back and you want to do it on every night, at least let them love you or let them hate you so that it works for you. And I feel the more linked you get to the crowd. There's a term in our business over. You know, I don't think any of the young generation is over minus Roman. I think, I think over is the. Can't step out of here without 50 people. Like I think there's a.

[Andrew Schulz]

Quoting everything you say.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think there's a group of people who are getting over and they're on their way. And what I noticed hopefully kind of being in that group is that they care enough that you can do less and get more. But when you say less is more to a 19 year old kid at the Nightmare Factory or someone who's been hustling on the Indies for 10 years, they think you mean be lazy. I don't mean mean be lazy. I mean fine, you're great at that flip. What's your catchphrase? What. What's your thing? What's your. Do something. You know, like promos used to be all the best business was. Now it's the combination. A little bit of it all. But yeah, it's tricky how you verbalize it to others.

[Andrew Schulz]

There's an interesting thing I also noticed with the, with some of your moves. Right. The, the crossroads move specifically it's. I don't even know the terminology for this, but you can reverse somebody's move into it.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which is very exciting.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like somebody's putting you in a suplex or whatever like that. The opposite reaction is the crossroads. It's the quickest path between two divergent stories. Right. It's like he's about to get crushed. It's over and he's on top. He can finish. Yeah, it is, it literally is a misreck. So I want. I've Been trying to like reverse engineer a wrestler in my head.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Has WWE figured this out? Like, what are the things that make a wrestler good? Or does there always have to be some authentic, organic flavor?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, I think recruitment is where you think authentic, organic flair recruitment. And this is all on Shawn Michaels, Triple H and Nick Khan. This is kind of making up the future of wwe. If they recruit a gymnast and they see Tiffany Stratton is a gymnast we'll use as an example, they see her do her athletic stuff. The gymnast element of it. Great.

[Andrew Schulz]

They can code, they try to coach the person.

[Cody Rhodes]

But one conversation can also say, oh, no, that's. There's a thing here. There's a thing that's the most. You can't just take. We've actually had some athletes come in who were the greatest athletes.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're getting D1 guys now.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, but they didn't have that little. That little thing that Kurt Angle is the greatest example of all. Olympic gold medal. Yeah, but what did it for Kurt. And people don't realize, they don't look back is Kurt. Behind the scenes in these pre tapes and in all kinds of promo segments was one of the funniest, entertaining.

[Akash Singh]

I remember that.

[Cody Rhodes]

But the other thing is, you knew, like, hey, if I get into a fight, Kurt Angle wins the fight. He's an Olympic gold medalist.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's qualified.

[Cody Rhodes]

So he literally had it both. So Sean and Hunter, that's the thing. You can't coach the It. You can't. The thing that's in there, you can't coach it. Like the it factor. You can't coach it, but I think you can maybe take a chance and okay, they've got this. They've got this. And I think they've got something.

[Andrew Schulz]

When you're creating your moves yourself, signature moves, are you thinking that?

[Cody Rhodes]

No, I just steal my stuff from other guys.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. So, like the crossroads already existed before you.

[Cody Rhodes]

And yeah, it's called roll the dice. So it works for me. It was called roll the dice. And at the time they were trying. That's the thing. I had a lot of the mental. Hey, I know the psychology. I was raised in the business, so I had the stuff that people get later ingrained in me. But the stuff that most people get early, like a physical. Physicality to being in great shape. A good move set. I hate that term. But hey, do some cool moves. Yeah, that stuff was. I didn't have any of that. So WWE was backwards. And how they. Hey, there's. Try this. So I remember Jamie Noble gave me Crossroads Try this. It was always, you know, you got a match tonight, six minutes, it's you winning. It's always like moving really quick and you've got to keep up with it. But then I also have like the Mega man rule. If I wrestled you like 50 times, times, I'm going to use some of your stuff out of respect for your stuff.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, okay. That was the other thing. What is the etiquette with that? Like, can you.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, I'm breaking all etiquette. Somebody eventually is going to be like, hey, dude, please stop.

[Andrew Schulz]

Are they. Are they annoyed? Like, so you're wrestling a guy who has a signature power bomb, whatever. Do you do it within the first few minutes? Do you tell them you're going to do it?

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, no, you got to put it. If you're really going to do it, you got to put it in the greatest of spots. You've got to respect what you're. What you're thieving here. I'll give you the best, but the most old school respect earned firm. Don't mess with wrestler in the current locker room is Randy Orton. I do what's a Cody Cutter, which is like, yeah, you do it off the. But it's an rko.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Never flinched. He was my mentor when we were in the group Legacy. He watched me grow. We always stayed in contact. I asked him about it. I think that's a big part, asking about it. You see all these other cutters. There's one in NXT that's amazing. And I wonder, it may not be the same experience for you. You might get the old, hey, that's my thing. That's my thing. I feel like I've peppered it in and layered it in a way that it's done with love again. A gold dust uppercut. It's my brother fair game. I can have that bionic elbow. It's my father fair game. I can't. Can have that Bob Holly Alabama Slam. He was my first tag partner and I kind of de facto retired him from wwe. I can take that. It's. That's the Mega Man. You know, you beat the boss and you get these.

[Andrew Schulz]

There are certain things, little things.

[Cody Rhodes]

Roman hit me with a Crossroads at WrestleMania 40. You know, it's. Oh, yeah. All Austin and Rock did was just each other's stuff, dude, you know, like there's a charm in that. We've gotten away from it because you can get a little overkill with it. But, you know. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

When he. You talked about the technicality, the moves, I remember in terms of emotional attachment. The Rock would just do his elbow when he would do so much flare that it became a finisher. And they called it the people's elbow.

[Cody Rhodes]

Which is so funny.

[Akash Singh]

But it's exactly what the song called Stunner is. Not like a technically insane move. It's just this and this. But I'm so attached to you exactly that. I love that.

[Cody Rhodes]

The trick with the people's elbow is in the time, too. You have to remember, you got an audience sitting there. They want to take the ride. If you're moving so fast, they can't catch up. He's going to make you take. We're going to have a whole we're going moment. We're going to look at one another. I'm going to throw you my elbow pad. I'm going to hit both ropes when I only need to hit one. And you're going to every step of the way, be there. That's just genius. And I think that's something that actually happened for him on the fly as he was growing, like, oh, they're. They're biting on this. This will stay. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

How do you. How do you work the. How do you learn to work the crowd like an instrument? It seems like the people who are really good at this business can. It's energy in, energy out. Right? Energy out, energy. They are working that audience.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think you have to always remember your audience is really sophisticated. Some people think they'll think, like, not saying monster truck's audience are not sophisticated, but again, they don't think of it highbrow. So the first thing you need to know is your audience is not an idiot. The second thing that I have noticed is you have to really look at them. So I can always tell a young and, like, green, I guess, or naive.

[Andrew Schulz]

Baby face is looking out is if.

[Cody Rhodes]

They go out and they're doing this and they're slapping hands that aren't there. You know what I'm saying? They're thinking, I'm. I'm supposed to do that. I'm doing. And then you can see they're nervous. So all those things, totally understandable. But, you know, look at that kid. Yeah, look at this. Actually make the. Hey, you're in this with me. We're doing this together. We're doing this together. And it's the same when you're in the ring. When you're in the ring, you have to really make it clear, like, you're. We're in this together. If I'm hurting, you're hurting with me. If I'M up. I want you up now. Now's the time I'm making this comeback. I want you to get to your feet. So it's a matter of not performing in what I would call darkness. You are performing in front of thousands, if not thousands. You're performing in front of hundreds. And if you can do it front of hundreds, you can do it in front of thousands. Get them involved. Nothing like an independent that's house lit where you can see everything, including the concession stand. And, you know, getting them to do something when most people are self conscious about like, do I cheer, do I do it? You know, like, there's no, there's no drink minimum at this thing. Like, they're coming in cold, you know, so that's, that's the thing. You have to really look at them. That's something that has worked for me that I got from my brother, is this is not for the cameras as much as this is for everybody in this place.

[Andrew Schulz]

Really play his seat.

[Cody Rhodes]

I, I've been able to do this thing lately. Nobody stopped me. Hopefully nobody stops me. I always at the beginning of an interview will say, hey, we got a lot of people in here. If you're up there, say hi to the people down here. If you're down here, say hi to the people up there. Like, let them know, I am not doing this just for the camera. Yeah, it's not, it's not Covid wrestling. This is for us here tonight. We're going to have a very good time. Or on those nights, like, it might be a bad time too, but, you know, I need, I need you to feel something when you leave here in.

[Andrew Schulz]

The heat of the, the, the battle. Right. The dance, how much is communicated? Because there are certain things that are like, yeah, I'm gonna reverse this and then you're gonna do this. That can't just be improv on the fly.

[Cody Rhodes]

So. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So there has to be some choreography. Right.

[Cody Rhodes]

Again, very behind the scenes getting it all. So the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sorry, my bad.

[Cody Rhodes]

So the.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, what I do wrong there?

[Cody Rhodes]

No, you're fine, you're fine. Amongst the battle.

[Mark Gagnon]

Another dance is fine.

[Andrew Schulz]

Here's where dance will really work for it.

[Cody Rhodes]

Because like, if you're a killer dancer and I stand up and I take your hand and I put my hand on your waist and you're a killer dancer. I don't have to discuss much with you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, if I can move you, I can move you.

[Cody Rhodes]

I know also what you do. If you've been at this long enough, it's important that I know what my opponent does, he knows what I do. When you are really young and. And. Or if you're wrestling someone that might be more of an A to Z, this is it. This is next. This is that. But something in our business that's lost, and it's really hard to pick up those who are good at it. There's a lot of communication in there that no one ever sees.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't see, like.

[Cody Rhodes]

Do you speak Carney at all? Do you know about carney?

[Andrew Schulz]

No. No. What's this?

[Cody Rhodes]

So Carney is how I talk almost in general. You know how Snoop talks? For shizzle. Yeah, Carney to that. Like that. When Snoop started doing that, I thought, like, does he know wrestling? Because that's a thing. That's a lost art in wrestling.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's Carney?

[Cody Rhodes]

Carney is how you communicate. Like dizz. You know? Exactly. It's these little things that can be. Can be pointed out as perhaps trash talk. You know, Jim Ross always on commentary used to be like, he's talking a lot of trash in there. It's probably somebody explaining where we need to go, what we need to do. But the masters at it are just. You don't know that how they do the trick, you know, whether it's hair in the face, whether it's through the referee, whether it's physical. Again, you know, I. Forgive me for giving some of industry secrets away, but if ever. This. This means a bazillion things. This means a bazillion things. Like if you get the iggy, I mean, it might mean I'm okay. That might mean reverse.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is the iggy.

[Cody Rhodes]

Iggy. That's the Iggy. Yeah, the iggy. So the iggy also is interchangeable, though. So you got to really know what's going on. Otherwise, you like, you know, if a big table bump or whatever, and you got to know what it means in context. Everything's in context.

[Andrew Schulz]

Are you have that. Has ever somebody ever said something to you that, like, genuinely made you laugh but, like, in a serious moment and you had to, like, hold it together on screen? Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, it happens all the time.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like what?

[Cody Rhodes]

Like there's a really famous moment where Kofi Kingston, who was not Jamaican, he was from Boston. Yeah. They knew it was hard for him. Like, he's doing this Jamaican character in the accent. They knew it was hard. So they gave him this out where they were going to be like, hey. He was going to say, like, listen, guys, I'm not Jamaican. I'm from Boston. Because I think we're all part of one team, and Triple H was leading this promo. But they have this moment where I'm just behind him and you can see I'm really struggling. Really struggling to keep it in because years of him doing every ability, appearance.

[Andrew Schulz]

Do you have it?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, like, every. Every appearance? Yeah. Kofi Kingston. It was a hell of a moment there, for sure.

[Andrew Schulz]

Jamaican.

[Cody Rhodes]

Jamaican me crazy. Was the whole. Yeah, but people bring it up, whatever, whenever I'm just kind of leering around the back, just trying my hardest. But I. I think I. I think I blow a whole promo line because I'm caught in the moment of what we're doing, doing. But it's. People think like, oh, they can't laugh or they can't break character. If you're out there with another good guy, you do whatever the hell you want. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can. Like, we're friends. We're, you know, like, it's okay to have these moments, but it happens a lot. Sami Zayn's probably the easiest to do it to people. Wait, why Sami Zayn when he was part of the bloodline and get on the same page? Because if we don't, it's going to be bad news for all of us. I mean, any. Any questions? I got a question. Matter of fact, I got a problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

Aren't you supposed to be Jamaican?

[Cody Rhodes]

What happened to your accent? Yeah, I chime in and I'm completely. Oh, my God. It's happening. Because I was on appearances with Kofi where he'd be like, ah, see it eventually, like, he was trying to do it, and you could tell. He's like, this is. This is brutal. But Sami Zayn is the most famous with bloodline because he could make those guys laugh. Like Jimmy and Jay and even Roman. He could make them laugh.

[Andrew Schulz]

What would he do?

[Cody Rhodes]

Well, at the time, he was part of the. What was Sammy's name? The honorary use. He's not a Samoan. He's not part of the bloodline, but they made him part of the group and he committed fully to that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Talking like Samoans.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. Here's this, you know, white kid from Montreal. Yeah, he's not a Samoan. And the way he'd be like, that's right, ooze. And you could just see it was real. It went from being this funny backstage bit to, no, they ran with it. It became a whole tv. He really loved it and loved them, which is why it hurts so bad when Roman turns on him. It hurts because he really did love this interaction. But Sammy can pop A lot of people. The USO's can pop a lot of people too. So there's an infamous moment where I couldn't keep it together at a press conference because of Jey uso. It would be widely considered the most unprofessional moment of my career. Wait, wait, I'm sorry. Is this the bloodline? Mom. Sammy. Yeah, Sam. Sammy's right there. Yeah, I want to get back to this one. This is.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think he's just not himself right now.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's it. Okay.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's just not lately.

[Cody Rhodes]

He just hasn't been very o. Yeah, Jimmy's back there. He's. This is honorary Oost man.

[Andrew Schulz]

So Sammy's trying to crack him up.

[Cody Rhodes]

He likes it, but it's. It's also like, he. It's character appropriate again, the Meryl Streep thing. Sammy's the type that. He's going in on this. Yeah, Honorary. I mean, there was a picture of all of them from high school because they all grew up together and somebody just photoshopped Sammy into it. And like, as a high schooler, clearly not a member of the family. Clearly. But yeah, he was really good at it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

My most unprofessional is the press conference. There might have been other factors involved with the press conference.

[Andrew Schulz]

Wait, why?

[Cody Rhodes]

What do you mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

He, like, yelled at you does something. I think I saw this back in.

[Cody Rhodes]

The day, the press conference. We had won the tag titles of this pay per view called Fast Lane. Me and Jay uso, which was super fun. And we got to be opening match. When you're opening match, you really try to, like, just steal that show and bang. Just start that thing with a bang. And we had this match and then we had a lot of time, and I did not know. It's very important that everyone knows. I did not know I was needed for the press conference. So wwe, after these ples as press. Press conferences. So we went on my bus, and in the safety of my bus, there might have been several libations passed around. And then PA Tommy, God bless him, comes on, the bus goes, you guys are gonna be first up at the press. And at that point, I still was like, all right, I got this. Yeah, great. And then I had to let the. The press corps know who we had there. I think it was Indianapolis. I had to let them know, like, sorry, guys, we had kind of a night here because it's just disaster. Yeah, this one. Yeah, it's so bad. Also, you know, now that she is.

[Andrew Schulz]

Here, I. I think the elephant in.

[Cody Rhodes]

The room is Sort of whether or not you've had the opportunity to I'm thinking be a full disclosure. Full disclosure. UD and I might have had a libation or two on the maybe but that said, I was very excited for her to you try to pull it together, bro. It gets worse. The whole thing falls. There's a bunch of barking that goes on at one point. You know what I'm saying? You know, we keep it lit. Yay. Appreciate it though man. But man, I, I the question is bleed here away from it. What was the question? This question. Kiss. Oh well first off, so I tried really hard guys. I, I did, I did thought this is a rare like modern wwe so different than how it used to be. I thought, okay, not our best look, we obviously didn't say anything stupid and Jay is the sweetest and like we didn't know we had the press conference. I didn't think like I thought maybe we would be chastised and I wanted to make sure like hey, okay, I understood if there's some trouble. But instead they just decided to put the whole thing up on YouTube the next day because they're like this is great.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know.

[Cody Rhodes]

And I thought o glad I won't do it again. People, people really want him and I to I, I thought about it several times when we do these pressers to maybe crash Jay's press conference just to bring it back because it was like a nice weekend update vibe to it.

[Andrew Schulz]

So yeah, those are great moments.

[Cody Rhodes]

That was in between WrestleMania 39 and WrestleMania 4. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

It seems recent.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's a big part of the resurgence. Right. Like treating it like sports teams. Like you do the post conference, you do the walk ins.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. From ESPN is came in and man, just the way he looks at and produces television. Very much of I love that because I grew up always wanting we're trying to emulate sports and we're trying to show so I love that he brings that immersion from the sports world. He's been a really terrific asset for wwe. Nick Khan feels the same way. And again these ples after this is a real moment. The questions that come, they're not always the safest questions. They can't be the safest. These are real press conferences. So it's a very different company from the one that I left initially. It's a really cool, cool environment. Yeah. I have a couple random wrestling questions. Hit it. Biggest pop you ever heard that you were a part of or that you saw. Biggest pop I ever heard. Gosh, that is a. I really want to Nail it and narrow it down to, you know, what it might be. The Rumble provides some of the biggest pops ever. The Royal Rumble, because it surprises returns, and I have been around some of the biggest pops. So I'm gonna kind of put this between two. And maybe it was just how I heard it in the arena in the moment, but they were two that drove me crazy. One was my brother coming back to fight me at the Royal Rumble, which we had not had that interaction. And this was. I had a mustache at the time. Just doing a whole nother level of character stuff with wwe, trying to make it work.

[Andrew Schulz]

Not a character at all. Very fake about it.

[Cody Rhodes]

It's real to me. So it wasn't near on the level that yours is. I can't grow face facial hair that well. So what I did compensate is I colored it.

[Andrew Schulz]

You colored it.

[Cody Rhodes]

So it was like. It literally was a airport test head scratcher, like look like makeup. That was about three years for that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, it took a while. This took a long time.

[Cody Rhodes]

Shawn Michaels showing up to fight Randy Orton, and I remember he was an all camo and he, like, parted the seas. That was an amazing pop. I remember hearing, I think, the greatest pop in all of Wrestling. Maybe. WrestleMania 40 was definitely up there, but WrestleMania 18, Rock Hogan, when Hogan hits the leg drop and Rock kicks out, it is everything you could possibly want about our business in terms of moves. Do they match? The moments, do the moves matter? And that again, it's not even always. It has to be a stadium, because sometimes a stadium, the sound goes straight up. Yeah, you don't know. And then. But some of the smallest buildings ever. I mean, some significant moments. The original all in. That's the one for me that I'll never forget. The original all in wrestling. A guy named Nick Aldis, who's now the general manager of smackdown. Before we locked up, there was such a feeling about what had happened that weekend and how we had done this that the place is shaking. And I remember they went around the barricade because they could see everybody. Oh, my gosh. You got me now. Now I'm on a rant. Here I go. Here's my final answer on Greatest Pop. AJ Styles and Leon France. Just recently, we do old school intros. I'm champion at this point. Wrestling AJ Styles and Leon France is. The camera is going up and down. And AJ Styles, who has been in every big match situation you could possibly imagine, you can see on his face. We knew we were in some sort of special moment because that crowd is currently the top crowd in all of wrestling. I mean, every crowd's been amazing. But, but Leon, sound wise, it sounded like they were going to bring the, the building down. Unbelievable. That was my favorite one I was ever in the ring for. Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Building is shaking. It's wild. And Sam's announcing him and the camera's about, oh, it's such a, such a cool moment. Such a cool moment. I'm curious, you had mentioned that, like, not necessarily dashing Cody Rhodes era mustache, but on the way up that you got, you plateaued when you had to actually switch to Star Stardust. Yeah. What is that plateau? Why does that character plateau? And then what is the difference when Cody Rhodes comes back? What is the difference with that character and the initial character? So sometimes I think it's as easy as physical, like your physicality. So this is going to sound silly, but this is a vanity business. There's still that. You still have to. If you're robust, for example, then what do you do to subvert the expectations? How do you use that to your advantage? Like, my father was never shredded. He was a big round dude, but he had the promo. His athleticism would be like, whoa. You were shocked Dusty could do that. Yeah. He knew what, he used it to his advantage. So you've got to be, if you're trying to be on the come up, you've got to get in the best shape of your career. The guy I'm getting ready to wrestle at Crown Jewel is named Gunther. He used to be on the independent name Walter. And Walther was very, very, I think, I don't want to say overweight, but he was not a muscle. You could see on him a big hefty chop, a tree down killer dude. That manifestation of his goals is right there in his physical. You can see he's gotten in the best shape of his career. He looks incredible. He looks the part. And there's this weird online contingent that doesn't realize how important that is. We are wrestling with our shirts off, folks. We are wrestling. You're standing next to some of the best athletes in the world. It's okay to go to the gym. We have like what we call effort shamers who. And then you hear fans like, you can't body shame wrestlers. What are you talking about? We're standing there half naked and you paid hundreds of dollars to sit here. You can body shame me all you want, but kicking back, that was the thing. I wasn't in great shape and I was in a small. I had filled the spot as being Dustin's tag partner, we had done really well at that point. I should have been focused on getting in the best shape of my career, having the best promo and more importantly, I should have fought that little battles. Hey, I don't want to team with my brother today. Hey, I don't want to come out to his music. If the answers you are. I still would have gotten better had I fought the little battles. Instead, I let it all build up, which led to me just posting my, you know, resignation on social media. And again, that worked for me. But I, I knew right in that moment a great deal of this was my fault. A great deal of it. But yeah, wrestlers, you can tell when they're in the best shape of their career. Career. They want it. They want it. Currently, there's literally. I love it. It's. I know it might seem toxic and stuff, but amongst the boys and girls, everyone like who does your diet, who's training, like there's a whole nother health conscious now to WWE that I love that. Like we're trying to look our best. So that was it for me. Interesting.

[Mark Gagnon]

During the Vin Stock, Undertaker talks about how many surgeries he has and how much his body's up. Like how long do you think you can do this?

[Akash Singh]

Yes, that was my exact question coming.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh man, that's a great question. I don't know if the answer would be different. And we've been drinking. I feel like I'm 39 now. I feel like I can go full time 100% and be like the best, be at my best and be the standard until 45. I don't know why I've like kind of put that number in my mind. As I have a three year old daughter. I do not want her to have a dad that can't do a lot.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Or they can't. And I haven't had that problem yet. I can throw her up. I can have. I don't want her to have a dad that doesn't have the strength and all the things she needs to pick her up, whatever it may be. I think about that a lot. But 45, I think for me. And I've also been really, really lucky. One surgery. Yeah, the peck. I, I have been, I have been blessed to just. I just, I have not been injured much. Again, not going what I hope is wood.

[Akash Singh]

It does seem like wrestlers wrestle for a really long time. The Rock is in his 50s probably at this point. Still wrestling. Undertaker was wrestling forever. Still getting in the ring. John Cena, I see him running down the ring as a 40 year old man.

[Cody Rhodes]

I'm like, your knees just that sprint, that's great.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. Just sprinting down ring or you got too many muscles for those knees. Dude, what are you doing?

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

What is it that keeps them doing it? How do they do it? Why do they do it?

[Cody Rhodes]

I mean if you look at WrestleMania 40 when his music hits.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's the why.

[Cody Rhodes]

That's the why there that, that. Could you hear that? And that's for you. You could probably jump through the ceiling.

[Andrew Schulz]

But what is the move where he puts on his shoulders?

[Cody Rhodes]

Attitude adjustment.

[Andrew Schulz]

The attitude adjustment. His hat kind of goes off almost crooked and he takes it and he chucks.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Dude, he is on fire.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh no, that's the people. He's a. He's a fed by the people type wrestler in terms of that energy. But to be so realizes he might.

[Andrew Schulz]

Be balding and he's like hold on, let me just adjust all this shit back.

[Cody Rhodes]

I forget who. I think one of the guys Austin theory might have come after the balding and John's reply. I don't know exactly what it was but I remember John had like just such a non sell of it. Like yep, great. I'm. I'm still gonna beat you. You know, like the way he approached it and had.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, he's been fantastic.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. John. John's special. That I think though that's misleading. That pop can be misleading. That pop can make you think you can do everything and. And you. So. So I. The reason I say 45 is also selfish is because my dad was an old man wrestler. He wrestled all the way. I mean he was. He wrestled with you probably 60.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

When he had had his last match, maybe even 60. And I hated seeing that. I knew people liked it. I knew he was okay, but I hated seeing him that way. I wanted to remember him differently. Battlegrounds the match where he hits his last bionic elbow on Dean Ambrose on the floor. Jon Moxley. And what people don't know about that is the reason all of it took place on the floor is because he couldn't get up the steps that easily. Oh wow. And I think at that point I. That's like the hardest thing to see is, you know, he knew though I gotta call it like let me go guys. Let me go. And that was the last one of the last big things he did with me on. On screen. But it was a really great gift. But because of that I don't ever want to overstay my welcome. I've really enjoyed Being, you know, I had the management role with my previous company, I would say I failed at that. I didn't necessarily succeed, but I learned a lot from that failure. And with this company, with wwe, if that's something that comes up for me, would you like to be behind the scenes? It's definitely something I'm considering because I had a whole run at it once before where I pretty much bombed. So at this point, I know, like, you know what? I think I can get this now. I think I can figure it out. Long way off, though. Long way off. I want to hang on to this as long as I can. I just want to ask one more thing. Yeah. The story and ending. The story is ultimately you getting. Getting the belt and bringing it to your father so that no one could ever take it away. That's right. Did you and your mom and your brother and the rest of the immediate family ever have a moment where you kind of honored your dad with the belt because he couldn't be there? The. It's. It's right there in the ring after WrestleMania 40. The only. I remember when Rock was, like, going in on Mama Rhodes, and he thought it was really funny. And I remember thinking. Thinking, she doesn't watch like you think she watches. She know her dad was. I mean, her husband was Dusty Rhodes, like, again, dead or in jail. She loves me, but she. I don't think she knows what's happening so much. I've had to always bring her to a show to be like, look. Look what's happening.

[Mark Gagnon]

She still thinks it's real.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah, a little bit. You know what I'm saying? And when that moment was happening, he's yelling at her and all that. I actually had this whole epiphany of, like, I could have had Ric Flair, who was my dad's greatest rival with me. I could have had Arne Anderson, who was my manager previously. I could have had my. I could have had one of these people who was really like dad and knew enough about dad that I could share it with them. I realized in that moment, no one was more qualified than her. Nobody. Sorry. But in the ring, I got to hand it to her. And that was the best. It really. It really was the best. Because when you're a wrestler's wife. Oh, my God, a wrestler's kid, like, you go through it, and he went through it. This was. You know, now we've got the best management. We've got really healthy, healthy company. We're checked on. I get a freaking cardio scan every three months because of wwe. My dad didn't come up in that era. It's different. It was very different territory. It was check to check. It was driving all over the country, taking all these big risks. And she rocked with it and hung with it. And she knew the story wasn't so much about handing it to him anymore, just about us having it. Like, nah, he's. You keep saying his name. He trained this guy. Trained that guy. Are you. And pay per views that he named and created his. His influence is still felt on this. How can it be felt in the biggest way? And his youngest son winning the hardest title to win in our game. She knew she was the most qualified for it in that moment. Fast forward to me getting my ass kicked outside of my bus by Kevin Owens. And my mom is unaware that this has happened in the parking lot. This story has happened in the parking lot. And 10 minutes later comes out and the fans are cheering for Mama Rhodes, oblivious to what has taken place. And she's just g up, slapping hands like she's become a. It's. It's. It's ridiculous. She's got her own shirt. I'm positive there's probably an action figure coming.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yellow boots.

[Cody Rhodes]

I'm the yellow boots that go through my bag. You can find it. But yeah. No, she was. She was. That was the moment for us. And I got. Got to have a nice, very small conversation with my brother before it all happened. And that was probably the most important conversation I had that whole day. Just about like, we're here. We did it. And the fact that we went WrestleMania back to back.

[Akash Singh]

The moment where you give your mom the belt after you win it as a big mama's boy. I'm crying just even.

[Cody Rhodes]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

It's why you do everything, you know.

[Cody Rhodes]

Oh, my gosh. So too, like family is so. I feel like wrestlers used to. And I asked. I don't. There's. Wrestlers used to almost do this. And it was their family. You really couldn't have a family. Especially in these old days where you're wrestling eight days a week because you're doing twice Sunday and you're traveling everywhere and all that. The best thing that ever happened. And really the thing that was missing the best thing that ever happened for me was having my daughter. My daughter. She doesn't need to know this and it's not her responsibility at all, but she made me the best wrestler I could have ever been. She made. She made me the most responsible human being. I don't even like cursing because I have a three year Old daughter, the moment with rock and all that. I didn't lash out. I didn't do anything stupid because I report back to this little kid, and also my wife and I will roll the dice here and there. I'm not rolling the dice with that. You know what I'm saying? And that's to me, I get to do this job because of my family. They're very much a part of it. So that was very, again, real in this world that you're not always sure what real and what's not.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Cody Rhodes]

Fast forward.

[Mark Gagnon]

Your daughter comes to you, mom and dad both in the business, and she says, I want to become a wrestler. What do you say?

[Andrew Schulz]

You're going to end up dead or in jail.

[Cody Rhodes]

I think I would tell her because I remember I went to Waffle House with my dad when I finally told him, hey, I want to. I definitely want to pursue this. And he took, like, four minutes to say anything to me, and it felt like an hour. And we're driving home, and I remember all he said was, okay, if you're going to do it, you're going to do it to be the best. And then he said, I'll make some phone calls. That was, like, the coolest thing to hear. I think I would repeat the exact same thing. I don't think we're encouraging that route. You know, there's so many other things you can do. There's so many other.

[Akash Singh]

Liberty Rhodes is a great wrestler name.

[Cody Rhodes]

Liberty Rhodes, great. Oh, man. Yeah. No, she. Which also she thinks what I do for a living is. Is WrestleMania. That's what she thinks I do for a living because she came to watch my entrance at WrestleMania 39. That's the only part she saw. So every weekend it's Papa's going to WrestleMania. Yeah, sure. It's WrestleMania every weekend, but yeah, no, if she does, then we'll cross that bridge. Brandy might have a different answer, but my family was super supportive. You tell them you want to be an astronaut with no education and. No. Yeah, we'll do it. Where's astronaut school? Sign them up. You know.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, Cody, this has been awesome. Yeah, it is. It is great. When you, you know, when we have somebody that's going to come on the show that we're excited to talk to, and they exceed expectations. Thank you so much for sharing the story.

[Cody Rhodes]

Thank you so much. Thank you.

[Mark Gagnon]

Hell, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And best of luck with everything.

[Cody Rhodes]

Thanks, man.

[Andrew Schulz]

Of course. I can't wait till you turn heel, bro.

[Cody Rhodes]

No, no.

[Akash Singh]

Heel turn. Five years.