Undisputed WWE Champion “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes recently appeared on the SI Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina to discuss various topics, including which old-school concept he would like to bring back.
Rhodes said, “I’d bring time limits back. Because time limits — say you have a cold match, right? And I mean cold match by, there’s no previous heat or anything of that nature. Say you just had Dom Mysterio versus anybody. New guy, Ricky Saints, NXT. You had that match, and they have no previous equity, no storyline. There’s natural stakes when you first hear ‘five minutes gone, 10 remaining,’ or ’10 minutes gone.’ There’s natural stakes, there’s a clock. Jim Ross taught me that, and he was really accurate about it. You can give a match stakes that didn’t really have [them’ because crowds are the most important engagement we have for this. We do not just do this for ourselves. So if they’re involved with a ‘five to go,’ or as you see sometimes in New Japan. When they say ’15 minutes gone,’ you start to feel the crowd come up. ‘It’s getting serious. We’re getting in the deeper waters here, these warriors are going. I love time limits. They will never come back, unlikely, but I love them.”
On the idea of being paired with Paul Heyman:
“You know, I’d say this is, I was really absolute in the past about saying, ‘I’m never going to turn heel. I’m never going to be a bad guy.’ If you’ve been around me lately? Ahh… three Manias in a row? That can that can start to shift you a bit, you know? Like, what do you want your legacy to be? And then also, you find yourself going the other way. ‘No, I want to make sure I make the right calls, right decisions as I move. And yeah.’
On the value creatively of a heel turn:
“There’s a challenge in it. new, it’s fresh, it’s something. I would try to actually get heat, which is — online, I can already tell you. If they’re saying it’s bad online, then I know I’m doing my job. But the other side, there’s a challenge to being who I am. The other night I told Stephanie McMahon, ‘I got two words for you.’ And I just said, ‘Thank you’ instead of ‘Suck it.’ They wanted the other thing. And I thought, ‘I still have the ability to make that choice.’ have the ability to make that choice and get booed, but maintain the character. And that was an important, important choice.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
