WWE star Cody Rhodes, known as “The American Nightmare,” appeared on Last Meals to discuss various topics, including the inspiration behind his neck tattoo.
Rhodes said, “I’ll make a revelation to you that no one knows. When I got the American Nightmare, the skull logo, I was coming from a group in New Japan called the Bullet Club. Skulls, AK-47s crossed like this. In Japan, that was a different — it felt different than it does here… in Japan there’s no guns, so they’re not — it’s more fun. It’s not — here, it means something different. And I wanted to get away from that. And no disrespect, I just wanted my own logo. So, when doing the American Nightmare logo, it’s a bit derivative of Shadaloo, which is the main villains of the Street Fighter canon, and M. Bison’s logo… this logo is actually slightly derived. So when you’re looking up in the Burlesque Hall in one of the scenes in the movie, because M. Bison welcomes you to his World Warrior tournament, it’s actually one of the examples I gave the artist who made this logo in the first place.”
On not overly regretting it:
“I’ll say it’s a regret because of maybe the logo itself, because of its size and its placement. But it’s been nothing but a career on an upwards trajectory ever since.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
