Former WWE star Cody Rhodes recently appeared on the WNS Podcast which you can listen to in full at this link. Below are some interview highlights:
ON LIST OF WRESTLERS HE’D LIKE TO COMPETE AGAINST:
“I think, I kind of have in my mind, mental amendments on the original list. I didn’t expect the list to go gangbusters like it did. You can never top the original. The original list is special and looking back I wish I had included some names.”
ON HOW WWE STYLE DIFFERS FROM INDEPENDENT STYLE:
“I think, I don’t really look at them as contrasting styles and I don’t mean to insult. They are very different. TV wrestling like WWE versus an independent show like PWG. They’re very different, but it’s not the styles that’s for me to adjust to but rather the talent itself. With the inception of NXT, developmental became much less about building their own talent at WWE and it became about maximizing on independent and international talent that already had their own flair about them. This built in equity. I don’t find one style safer or not safe. I don’t even find them different as much as the talent currently.”
ON APPEARING IN BOTH RING OF HONOR AND TNA:
“I can’t be specific exactly. But I think I made the list. If you look at the list, and at the top of the list, it wasn’t prioritized the name thought of was Adam Cole. Adam Cole makes his home in Ring Of Honor and I’m a massive fan of Ring Of Honor. I drove up and down the road with Daniel Bryan and Cesaro and got to know Kevin Owens and my last few years with WWE those guys, their admiration for Ring Of Honor and what they were able to accomplish there built them to the level they were at in WWE. If you’re on the list like Adam Cole I’m going to make the best efforts to get where you are and that doesn’t exclude TNA or Ring Of Honor. If you look at TNA, there’s all this stigma around them focussing on the business side when in reality the in-ring product they are delivering is of the highest quality. And you have these young guys. You’re not just making it a haven for ex-WWE or broken down wrestlers. No. They are young and hungry and like I said if you’re on the list I am going to make every effort to get where you’re at. That might be Ring Of Honor, TNA, New Japan. Currently, I’m signed on to do Final Battle December 2 with Ring Of Honor at the Hammerstein Ballroom and it means the world to me to be heavily featured on the event. Just when they came out with the graphics alone it sure as hell means a lot to me so hopefully there will be more of that in the future.”
ON WINNING OVER THE CROWD:
“WWE is, to some people, the end all be all in the wrestling game. It’s the company that’s able to do Wrestlemania. It’s the company a lot of us grew up watching. So when you’re in a position to be in that locker room and handed something that may not be to your liking that’s the reason you get the paycheck every week so you’re going to deliver. There’s plenty of people there, not just me, that had a high level of work ethic. The thing that I kind of prided myself on is taking things that didn’t or shouldn’t work as well as they did and making them something bigger. The easiest thing to do is comedy. Take anything that you’re not a fan of and make it silly. And I always tried to make stuff, if I wasn’t a fan, not silly but but make it good. Make it pro wrestling.. I tried my damnedest not to make something that somebody would laugh at. There are plenty of times I laughed at myself, I’ve been laughed at. But taking something that’s not supposed to be a contender and making it a contender is a damn good feeling and I just thought at a certain juncture I was tired of doing that. I was tired of making something out of something less. I kind thought well what if I had been given something more. What could I have made of that? But, all hindsight it’s worked out for both parties. They granted me my release in an amicable fashion and it’s because of that I am able to do this tour I’m on now. It’s really worked out.”
ON A POSSIBLE STARDUST VS GREEN ARROW WRESTLEMANIA MATCH HAVING TAKEN PLACE:
“With Stephen, there was a particular Hell In A Cell match that was supposed to happen in Los Angeles and it was kiboshed. The way it was kiboshed was unfortunate because we had already set up ring time and Vince told us the direction we’re going and I’m used to things changing on the fly when you have somebody from that world that’s kind of a kick in the balls for them especially when there’s no reason. I think, and this wasn’t an answer I was given but, WWE tends to define celebrities different than how my generation defines celebrities. I’m probably more out of it than I think but the younger crowd is on the cusp of pop culture and WWE is hellbent on their celebrities being ten years out of their prime or bored as hell/”
DUSTY RHODES STORY:
“I think it was Wrestlemania 27 in Atlanta. I was wrestling Rey Mysterio and little known fact it was just my singles match at a Wrestlemania but my first singles match on a pay per view. I’ve been in tag team main events, I’ve been in Hell In A Cell but never a singles match. I was happy with the end results. I grew up in Marietta, Georgia so I was essentially kind of in my hometown when we were in Atlanta. I was talking afterwards and I was standing next to Rey Mysterio after the match. My dad just pulled his BlackBerry up and I looked over from the corner of my shoulder and I saw him take a picture of the two of us and that was the first time like he was a fan of mine.. You know I’ve always been such a fan of my dad’s and this is the first time I felt like wow I made him a fan of mine. Because at the end of the day you always want to impress your dad. That’s an important thing. Then he started doing that with everything. One year I’m having a private meeting with Big Show. He just kicked down the door and there’s Rock, John Cena, me and Big Show in a private room and here he comes just talking nonsense and how much better he is than everybody in the room. It was magical Dusty-isms and stuff like that. He did that every year at Wrestlemania after that. I’d catch him taking a picture of me and I never told him I caught him doing it but it was always cool to see.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
