Cody Rhodes spoke with Brandon Tierney and Sal Licata of WFAN Sports Radio 101.9 FM / 66 AM New York for an in-depth interview promoting this weekend’s WWE SummerSlam 2025 premium live event in New Jersey.
The following are some of the highlights from the interview.
On WWE SummerSlam: “This is SummerSlam’s first two-night. And there’s so much responsibility in the fact that it’s two nights. In terms of MetLife, this is a huge iconic stadium. A lot of energy. Plus, we’re at WWE’s backyard and it needs to be—the first one needs to be the absolute best one to set the standard. If we can keep doing this two nights each year, and then not just WrestleMania be a two-night affair. So having Jelly Roll, having Cardi B, John Cena’s Farewell Tour—all these elements of it are really important. I think everyone coming Saturday and Sunday is in for a lot of surprises and the good stuff.”
On WWE SummerSlam expanding to two nights: “Oh, I love it. I love the two nights because no matter how much you love wrestling—and I learned this when I was doing the independent stuff, one of them House of Glory in New York doing independent wrestling—they do a lot of dream matches where it’s 12 matches and all these matches need some dedicated time. But the issue is the same as if you go see a movie. You might love the movie you’re seeing. It might be Denzel and Denzel could be your favorite actor, but we can’t sit there for five hours without losing a little steam. You can’t sit there for seven hours—a marathon show. It ends up hurting the crowd a little bit and then it sets up those who go last for not the best scenario. I like the idea of two nights because it spreads the real estate. It keeps our crowd—the crowd’s gonna get more bang for their buck each night. And it also helps our locker room because the real thing about what we do is the struggle to get on these events, is the struggle to headline these events. That’s the most real thing in our industry—is to fight for it.”
On gimmick matches he’s interested in: “First Blood match is one. Dog collar I don’t see ever happening because of the neck and the whole… oh gosh.” But you know what too? Here’s one that I’ve thought about. I don’t know what you’d name it, because we have street fights. Like John Cena and I, SummerSlam—it’s a street fight. And it will be full-tilt boogie. Everything we can think of, right? I used to love when they’d do the ropes in barbed wire. I thought it was—because Dusty and Tully would do it. There was something about just the danger. WWE’s done the Inferno Match. Where you get near the fire. The danger of getting close—it’s just like a kind of performer’s, competitor’s dream. That’s one I’ve thought about a lot in terms of that—barbed wire and putting them on the ropes. That wasn’t gimmick. It’s real. It’s real. A lot of these items, you’ve gotta be really careful. ‘Cause if you gimmick them by today’s standards, it’s easy for somebody to find out you gimmicked them, and the first time Terry Funk falls back into barbed wire and gets all tangled up, you realize—oh. I just did a tour at the WWE warehouse and I saw Triple H’s 2×4 with the barbed wire wrap that he set on fire to hit Mankind in Hell in a Cell. The amount of things that were in this match that I just realized I’ve seen..”
On John Cena: “John was—my legitimate—one of three mentors in wrestling. So back in the rental car days, I drove John around for two years. Every show he’s on, last. Every show he’s sitting there. He gets his merch report. Every show, everywhere he goes, there’s pandemonium because he was the face of WWE at the time. That is wonderful and I love that. But you take those lessons, you apply them, and you hopefully make yourself, and I feel as John has come up here now—one of the real things you’re gonna see at SummerSlam is I am not here as a fan. I’m not here as an apprentice. I’m trying to be here and tell you, ‘Hey, it’s good. I’m gonna take WWE now.’ It’s good, and that is not popular amongst John Cena fans, and there’s an army of them. But that’s how it’s supposed to be. I do no service to you, John, if I remain the kid driving you around asking questions and not applying the answers. This entire time that we’ve been linked together since he came back and since Toronto, where he turned bad guy—whatever it is—this entire time has been very authentically a challenge. Very much] in terms of—hey, you gotta see me. No pun intended. You gotta see me. Not the same guy. Not kid. And hopefully that translates in quite a brawl. “I heard John so many times talk about, ‘I’m not gonna ever hand this off. I’m not passing this. You’re gonna have to outrun me.’ I think—it is maybe it’s me, maybe it’s not me, maybe he sees somebody else—but I do think he’s looked at modern WWE. He’s seen CM Punk. He’s seen Rhea Ripley. He’s seen Roman Reigns. He’s seen myself. I could name a bunch. He’s seen us, and I think—not okay with it—but I think he’s aware it’s a fight that he could lose. And a fight he could lose has never been a situation for John Cena. His entire run was—he was head and shoulders above everybody else. And now he’s joining the fray and that isn’t the case. But that’s how it’s supposed to be. I sound like such a dick. Laughs.] God, I respect him.
Check out the complete interview via the YouTube player embedded below, and join us here on Saturday and Sunday night for live WWE SummerSlam 2025 results coverage.
