Cody Rhodes made an appearance on Hot 97 radio in New York this week to discuss his upcoming title match at WWE WrestleMania 39, among other things.
Rhodes stated that RAW is still WWE’s flagship show:
“Having grown up in the company, I appreciate SmackDown for all it is and being on Fox and all that wonderfulness there, but RAW is still the flagship show. It almost seems like maybe a younger generation of fans, some of the kids for example that we have at the Nightmare Factory, I ask, ‘Hey, what are you watching’, and this and that. I feel maybe they forgot that it’s the flagship show. I mean, you’ve got Bianca on there. You got Seth on there. You got Becky on there. I’m back on there. Plus, there’s so much crossover. We’re in the Mania season where the walls are down anyway. You don’t know what’s going to happen, Paul Heyman last week. But for it to be the flagship show, Cena being one of my biggest role models in the business, that’s kind of the individual you want to pattern your steps after and he’s one that I’ve tried to do that and be very proud of being on RAW, being back on RAW.”
The influence Dustin Rhodes had on him while he was growing up:
“He actually came to my amateur wrestling practices and he’d wrestle with me on the mat, which was fun, because we would really go at it. We did not have a childhood together. He’s 16 years older than me. I don’t give Dustin enough credit as far as how important Dustin was to me growing up, and how I know how important he was, was I’d go to the Omni shows in Atlanta and Dustin would go out and maybe wrestle Stunning Steve Austin or Brad Armstrong. He used to get what we would call a chick pop where all the women would just go nuts over him. He was also so tall. I remember being there and thinking, ‘Yeah, I came here for Sting, but that’s my favorite wrestler, you know, is my brother.’ I don’t ever talk to him about that. I have now, but again, it’s how brothers talk. You don’t want to get on that emotional level. But I don’t give him enough credit as somebody, even as a teenager when Goldust was happening. I was a bit of an old soul. I had figured it out. It didn’t shock me. I get what he was trying to do, entertain people, and maybe he was the bad guy in the entertainment segment. But yeah, he’s one of my favorite wrestlers and I don’t give him enough credit. Then having been in the ring with him when we tagged together or when we wrestled one another, he is one of the top five that I’ve ever touched in terms of how quick he is, in terms of his general communication, in terms of his conditioning, and he’s fifty something years old.”
Why he feels Dusty wearing the polka dots in WWE was not a rib:
“One of the things I was told as a kid was right after these Garden shows with Superstar Billy Graham that Vince McMahon wanted to use Dusty and Superstar for his expansion that would become what we know as far as where we work, the biggest global sports entertainment wrestling entity on the planet, by far. They had booked recording studio time. They were going to make an album. This is before rock and wrestling. Vince had these ideas of reaching out beyond pro wrestling.”
“I’ll tell you as a kid hearing that story from Dusty, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was, you know, I’m watching VHS Coliseum Video of Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior and I thought it was his way of catching up to like, ‘Hey, I was really special too. I was really good too.’ He didn’t need to do that, but everyone’s got an ego. Come to find out, one day I’m sitting by the ring. This is before I left. I was still doing Stardust and Vince told me the exact story, how mad he was that Dad left and he was gonna give him the whole world, and he wanted him to be the Hogan and all this.”
“Then I remember my dad telling me about how Hogan used to come to Championship Wrestling from Florida and watch him and revered him. If you hear it from Vince himself, he just thought he was past his prime and let’s do some fun stuff. When I try to tell fans that the polka dots wasn’t a rib, it’s one of those things where they will argue with me on, and I don’t want to argue about this stuff. Hey, however you feel. In the past I tried to argue it, ‘No, it wasn’t a rib. He was a bit older. He was past his prime. Let’s have some fun.’ The only thing I can offer as substance that it wasn’t a rib is he was in major rivalries, Ted DiBiase, Macho King at WrestleMania, bringing Liz back to the ring, Big Boss Man. I mean he was in major rivalries for the tiny amount of time he was there. He was prominent the whole time he was there. He was on before intermission or on last depending on where Hogan wanted to go on the card. The secret of our finances is slightly more out on the surface because of myself, but my mom will tell you it’s also where he made the most money he ever made in his career, and prior to that he had been executive producer and their top talent with the NWA. So I don’t mind when people are like, ‘Oh, they don’t love the Rhodes.'”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
