Cody Rhodes says he had the right intentions, but now sees why his infamous “American Dream” promo was poorly received by fans.
Cody Rhodes appeared on Rasslin’ with Brandon Walker and spoke about his current feud with Sammy Guevara over the TNT Championship. Cody noted that Sammy was a nice guy in real life, so Walker jokingly asked why Cody beat Sammy for the belt if he thinks he’s such a nice guy. Cody said he doesn’t have any say in booking decisions, then went on to explain why he hated most of what transpired in his angle with Anthony Ogogo, especially after his infamous promo turned things the wrong way.
“I do not book AEW, I am not the head honcho. Actually, the head honcho is coming in later, The Khan as I like to refer to him. I’m not referring to him as TK. I can go ahead on record and say that I regret that, and almost everything about the Anthony Ogogo angle. Almost everything about it,” Rhodes said. “Yeah. Absolutely. I’m good now, I didn’t hate it either [at the time]. I was having a good time and Anthony is a former Olympian, he’s someone who’s a developmental talent and we recruited him, we’re training him, we’re bringing him up through the ranks.”
Walker asked what he hated about it, and Cody said that in hindsight, he worked a little too hard on that promo and said that he stands by the intent of the promo, but sees why it didn’t work out.
“What ultimately — I’ve never gone on record saying this but this is the perfect time — I stood by what I said in the promo that is infamous. I stood by it because I thought the content was good, I thought the intentions were good, however, a white guy talking about race relations with an American flag tattoo on his neck, I can see why people would use the term “tone-deaf” when it came to that. And then trying to defend it and again, the intentions were good and it was sincere, I was excited about Brandi and the baby, but that should have been one where I almost just winged it. Everything in wrestling, I work really, really hard on, very meticulous. You hear about Randy Savage and how hard he works on his matches, his promos… there are wrestlers that tend to be more like Randy in terms of their preparation, and then there are wrestlers who are more like my dad who are just cutting a promo on the produce in the grocery store and it’s better than most stuff you’ll hear on television. But I tend to be more of the big-time thinker, the planner, workshopper, all that stuff. I had worked on that stuff really hard and that’s what made it even more like, ‘Damn…’ Every now and then you’re going to come up to the plate and strike out.
“Overplanned it and just struck out, although I stand by [the content]. But once that had happened, it set the angle in a way that Anthony, who is as far as wrestling age is concerned, 18, he’s a baby, he doesn’t know what’s going on. It set the angle in like a tailspin where it wasn’t a classic, UK versus USA, fun-spirited deal. I was going to go over to the UK, we’d have the return match, but now I just never want to think about it again.”
Asked if he’s felt that way about any other angles he’s done, Cody Rhodes said that it’s been a crazy journey and it’s definitely aged him a bit, but he’s also learned to see what he’s good at and how he could sharpen his skills.
In May, Cody initially said he used a focus group to workshop his promo, but later clarified and said that he ran it by some trusted colleagues, including some coaches and management, but there was no actual focus group.
If you use this transcript, credit Rasslin’ with a h/t to WrestleZone and link back to this post.
