Undisputed WWE Champion “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes” spoke with Kenny McIntosh of Inside The Ropes on a number of topics, including his mindset after losing to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39.
Rhodes said, “Leaving WrestleMania XXXIX without the title, I just finished telling you how I say all the time I’m not concerned. That might be the most false “I’m not concerned” that I ever gave, because of the amount of time that fans may stick with you. You never know and can’t take it for granted. There were characters like Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, John Cena and Randy Orton who maintained the attention of the audience for years and years. You don’t know if that’s going to be you. I had a lot of really good people around me to put it in my mind that, hey, the champion is not going to be around as much as you are. These live events and this weekly business WWE puts on that sometimes we don’t see because we’re looking at the big picture, like SummerSlam or WrestleMania. You will need to be their guy, you will need to be their champion, this will need to be your team and I had a lot of people encourage me that in terms of keeping an eye on those metrics, the shows with just you on them, how’d you do here? How’d you do there? It went from being a false “I’m not concerned” to I really did own up to the idea of hey, okay, I will do all I can to be the lead dog in WWE’s most prolific era without being the champion. I think we accomplished that.”
On how a lot of wrestlers may have been affected by the loss:
“I can’t allow myself to really get rock bottom because it’d be super irresponsible of me to do that, because as much as I have the fever and love this, the things I love the most are my wife and my daughter and I don’t help them at all by taking my eyes off the prize. Me being older when I had Liberty means I got to continue to put in the time because, in terms of something that’s in the back of my mind, a goal I have is I want her to see me on top. She needs to start getting older so I can do that.”
On the memories that stuck out the most during WrestleMania 40 weekend when he finally won:
“The best thing that happened if you’re asking me about what’s in my heart—and I don’t think I even articulated this to this individual—is Charles Robinson, legendary WWE official and Little Naitch. Charles handing me the title. Even now I’m just tensing up thinking about it. Charles Robinson handing me the title was the happiest memory I could possibly have. In terms of willing something into existence, it doesn’t always happen, it’s not always a happy ending. I wasn’t going to get the opportunity to wrestle Roman again, really, if we didn’t get it done in Philadelphia. Charles handing me the title… I think also because he’s the senior official, in terms of being in charge of officials, leading the ring crew… to have that moment with him. Maybe he does know, I think he might be the type that we don’t have to say anything to each other. But that was incredibly special. I think the thing I love the most about the weekend was at the Hall of Fame before where I kind of realised, oh, man, they’re making a big deal with me here. I also got to do a dinner with my family that I didn’t want to do because I was so stressed out and I was so behind on time and sleep. Then when I got there it was great that I got to sit with them and see everybody, guys like Shawn Spears who I wish had been in the ring with me, some of my friends from AEW, of course, who came. Then we got to have that same group backstage right before I did the press conference and we just took a big picture. To have little Brodie, again, tensing up thinking about it, it might be a big deal to him that he was in the ring for that, he probably will tell you it is. I think it was a bigger deal for me. I think it was. My family is not always flesh and blood. I’m actually kind of hard on some of the members of my family that are flesh and blood. I got to be there with my real family and share that moment.”
