WWE star “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes recently appeared on the Double Coverage podcast, where he discussed a variety of topics. He shared that he felt nervous asking WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque for time off to film the Street Fighter movie.
Rhodes said, “I don’t think I’ve ever shared this before, but I was nervous to ask Triple H. That’s really my coach and my guide in the wrestling world. It’s important as the head of creative as he is, wrestling is his number one priority as far as business. Wrestling, getting people to enjoy the live SmackDown, RAW, PLE, NXT, whatever it is. He wants their enjoyment. He wants them hooked in. He wants the young fans happy, the old fans happy, the hardcore fans happy. He’s trying to cover a very large swath. So to say, ‘Hey, the biggest title we have, the WWE title, is going to go away, I was nervous.”
On how Triple H was willing to work around the filming schedule and consider how his absence and return would fit into WWE programming:
“That was one of the most pleasantly surprising conversations ever, not only great. We’ll get the dates, and we’re going to work it out. But I think you could do this, then when you come back to have some ideas about how it could all flow and not just to jump to the traditional, well, let’s set them on fire and throw them off the ‘Tron. Like not to go to the traditional book- them-on-the-way-out type. Just the world is well aware of what’s going on. They knew we were all coming together to film this, and that was a nervous conversation for me. If all conversations like that go as good as that one, that’ll be the greatest gift ever. Because again, wrestling is number one for WWE. At the time, you’re WWE champion. It needs to be number one for you too. It was; he just has a larger worldview, which you only get with experience. More of the younger talent, when they get reps in with Hunter, and they get to know who he is, it’s who he is now, is the perfect person and the only person who could lead WWE.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
