Undisputed WWE Champion “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes recently appeared on the SI Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina to discuss various topics, including whether he would like to be involved with the company after his retirement.
Rhodes said, “I think when I go to the office, the new HQ, that it feels really — I feel at home. I even — you know, I told Brandy the last time I went and did the rounds, because I don’t just like to do the car wash. ‘Let’s do the rounds for real. Tell me something real. I’ve been here before. Tell me something real. Tell me an area we’re weak, so I can help you. Whether it’s CPG or our production team. And Lee Fitting gave me the real info, not the surface stuff. ‘Let me get in.’ With that knowledge. I want to do more. Stephanie McMahon, what she did with the community department, I looked at that and thought, ‘That’s an area where I’d like to jump into something with Matt Altman who currently does it and Nick Fuster and pediatric cancer, what we do for our troops — all these are real. When a wrestler comes in and says that though, you often think they want to be the poster boy for it. I don’t have to be. Put me — I’d like to organize and facilitate. But when I go there, I feel at home.”
On possibly being part of WWE’s corporate structure:
“I was talking about it the other day; I’m so lucky with what’s happened in wrestling. I think there’s something funny and ironic about a Rhodes finding his way into the WWE corporate structure, the same way I found my way into being WWE champion. That’s a road that seems very obvious, because I love wrestling. I wouldn’t know what life is like without it. Even if I get mad at it sometimes, I love wrestling.”
On possibly doing more acting:
“But then also the idea of doing telling these stories like Batista’s doing, like Dwayne’s doing, John’s doing. They’re telling stories, but in TV and film. They’re doing movies. And I got my taste of that with Street Fighter. And all I wanted was to, ‘Oh, what do we do next?’”
On a potential political career:
“And then there’s obviously the most unpopular choice, and that’s, ‘What does the political world look like?’ You know, in Georgia there’s there’s a lot of open political positions. What does that look like?… I grew up loving political theater, which should not be your answer for why you want to be in politics. But I feel like I grew up in a time where people with a modicum of fame or influence surrounded themselves with really smart people. Someone who’s got a green initiative. Someone who is actually looking at the planet now, surrounded themselves with smart people and they were just the face of it. They had a great team, a great cabinet, and they — look back at Arnold in California. I think we didn’t realize that was fairly good in terms of policy compared to now. It’s difficult. And now everything is — that’s why I say it’s an unpopular choice. Everything is so divided and negative. I miss the day where on the debate stage the guy would say, ‘Oh, congratulations on your anniversary.’ It’s just wildly volatile, which is why it’s an unpopular [choice]. Don’t talk about it often. But it’s very intriguing to me.”
On some issues he’d want to do as a politician:
“I said it earlier and it’s really important to me, is a green initiative. If you look around and some of the lightning rod issues we talk about, which is stuff that was settled when we were growing up. How those how those become debate questions still? Literally to me, that’s a, ‘next.’ talk about something accurate. Talk about something real. And then societal infrastructure where you grew up, you probably had a great teacher, a great coach. We’re losing that. And that’s so in so much informing who you are. We’re losing that because we’re not paying them enough, you know. So those are two really out of the gate, and those are easy ones. Our government services. And then obviously, the largest service we have, keep this place going. Leave it better than you found it. That being a really great green initiative, too.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
