Ahead of his big match with Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania, Cody Rhodes appeared on the SI Media podcast with Jimmy Traina.
Cody Rhodes was asked if he ever thought in his career that he would ever main event a WrestleMania:
“I think it was a goal and it was a dream, but with sincerity, I don’t think I ever thought I would be main-eventing a WrestleMania. Even at my youngest going into OVW and developmental, and I had all the hopes in the world and had a really strong opinion of what I could be and what I could do, going on last at a WrestleMania is the most difficult spot to get, and being honest, I never saw it. Maybe that’s part of the reason why this is my first trip and this is Roman’s seventh, but I never saw it. That’s why now anyone who’s kind of my peers or people I’ve worked with over the years, anyone who’s given me my flowers this week or congratulated me or whatever it might be, I just tell them how genuinely lucky I feel. On Sunset Boulevard, there’s a giant poster of just Roman and I lingering over Hollywood and the entertainment elite, and it’s just very blessed, very lucky, sure. Ton of hard work, some wild decisions, and a unique road to get here, but no, I never saw it like this and I’m glad I didn’t because I’m experiencing it all here in real time.”
If he’s made peace with him being jealous of the NXT wrestlers who Dusty Rhodes trained:
“I think the jealousy was probably more intense than I even want to admit, and it started actually before he had even passed when NXT was down the street from my house in Winter Park near Orlando there and they were first doing their TakeOvers. It started even before because I wanted an experience as far as they were getting. I wanted to be in Dusty’s communications classes as he called it, but it was a promo class. I wanted to know what he was sharing with them. We’d never had that interaction. When he was a writer for WWE and I was brought up on the road, he asked to be taken off the road and he went to Florida and started that job, so we never were really truly a coach and a player. It was an intense jealousy. It only furthered when I had slipped myself down the card and you’re seeing, specifically the ones that were tough to watch were Charlotte, Roman, Mox, Seth, Kevin, Sami, Sasha, Bayley, those were very tough to watch and I definitely lashed out. I lashed out at Hunter too as well because he was the one who would be like, ‘These are the Dusty’s kids.’ Me and my sister Teil hated that, but we also couldn’t say we hated it because they’re doing great and they’re representing him. They’re almost representing him better than I am. That’s why it took time. I even heard someone say, and I might have been the one to say it backstage, like you know at this point it’s fair game, I’m adjusted to it. I think the only reason I’m adjusted to it is because I caught up. That’s what it was about, like, I wanted to catch up. These guys are doing great. I don’t want to knock them or anything like that. I just want to catch up to their level. They had Dusty Rhodes as a coach. Now the guys in NXT have Shawn Michaels as a coach. I had a different experience, and to be able to catch up to all of them took me a while. It makes for a different feeling about it.”
On what Brandi Rhodes is doing nowadays:
“It’s a vague update, but Brandi has got some non-wrestling related that she’s been doing that she’s working really hard on and hopefully she’ll be able to kind of unveil sooner than later, however, ‘Shot of Brandi’ is still something that is currently in pre-production in terms of moving from potentially YouTube to a larger platform. She’s so good at Shot of Brandi. We had so much fun when we were able to bring on different wrestlers on there and different people we know in the family and stuff like that. SOB is a fun, fun show.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit SI Media podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
