Undisputed WWE Champion “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes appeared on All The Smoke to discuss various topics, including how he looked up to his brother, pro wrestling legend and AEW star Dustin Rhodes, when he was a little kid.
Cody Rhodes said, “I admired him so much as a little kid, because there’s a 16-year age gap. He doesn’t love me pointing it out, but there’s a large age gap. And I would watch him at the Omni in Atlanta or you know, Macon, the Centroplex, whatever it was. And he was — the women would be going nuts for him when he’d go out there. And he was 6’6″. He just he he seemed like the greatest wrestler ever. And particularly, I was watching him in his rookie years and knew he was going to be something special. I admired him, wanted to be like him a great deal.”
On differentiating himself from Dustin:
“Any time you have any family in the in the business, you know, my father and my brother. The biggest thing that’s important that you do, and my dad was really good on instilling this, you have to be really different than they were. You can’t do tribute. You almost got to get away from that. You gotta get far. I got two nephews who are breaking in the industry, which is jarring. But they’re going to make it, and they’re breaking in now. And the thing I told him was, ‘You got to go and train with someone who doesn’t care about the Rhodes stuff. Train with someone who doesn’t know about Austin Hall wrestling boots, or the cowboy wrestlers of old. Get with the Canadians, like the Harts. Get that different style and that different flavor. It’ll really behoove you as you move forward in your career.’”
On when he realized his family was different:
“But to me growing up, it was always — I felt we had a very normal life. I really did. I didn’t realize how abnormal Dusty’s job was until I first moved into a subdivision. And that’s where other kids — you know, ‘My dad’s a salesman. My dad’s a teacher, whatever.’ They really looked at my dad just with really — [like a superhero]. Yeah, but I think also a little like Addams Family. Because he would mow the lawn in his ‘DR’ Wrestling trunks. And he had these Ray-Bans. My dad had this head was like as round as this blue table. And these Ray-Bans were basically breaking. They’re sucked onto his head. You have to pull them with all the force in the world. He’d always make a big spectacle which was part of how it was done at the time. You’d always let people know you were in the room. Very loud. But I didn’t realize it was so different until I got around other kids and. And for me it just it was [dad]. It was very much. He was older, he was a producer. He wasn’t as active in the ring anymore as he was with the the first kiddos. Yeah. It just was a very normal childhood, until you went to the office one day and then you saw.”
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(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
