Cody Rhodes predicted Randy Orton would lose to him for a third time at Sunday Night’s Main Event. Orton won. Rhodes made the call in an interview with OutKick and Fox News Digital recorded it before the show, responding to Orton calling him an addict, sick, and someone who puts the WWE Championship in front of everything else.
Rhodes read the comments as an attempt to provoke him into throwing a punch. SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis had told both men that whoever put hands on the other first would be barred from competing for a WWE championship.
“What’s the term kids use today? The rage bait,” Rhodes said. “Because if I had hit him, then I don’t get an opportunity for the WWE Championship ever, and the same vice versa if he had hit me.”
He did not dispute the underlying charge so much as reject it as a criticism.
“I hate to put it in such terms, but at King of the Ring, I beat Randy Orton. At WrestleMania, I beat Randy Orton. I feel the desperation and the addiction,” Rhodes said. “Every pro wrestler, to your point, you’re in this to win. You’re not trying to get second on the podium. I’ve never trusted a wrestler ever, hell, I’ve never liked a wrestler ever, who said he didn’t want to be champion.”
He then turned it around, arguing Orton is the one chasing something.
“I think that addiction and sickness is actually more on Randy’s end, because Randy’s close to the record. He’s close to 17. He’s close to John,” Rhodes said. “I think Randy also feels that he’s not been given the credit as one of the GOATs of modern WWE, someone who’s going to go down in history as one of the greatest to ever do it.”
The last line is the one that did not age well.
“He should know he is going to go down in history as one of the greatest to ever do it, but he’s also going to go down in history as the guy who lost for a third time at Sunday Night’s Main Event to his protege, which is me,” Rhodes said.
Orton beat him on Sunday at State Farm Arena in Atlanta in a little over eighteen minutes. The two started brawling in the crowd before the bell and used trash cans, the steel steps and the barricade on the way back to the ring. Orton dropped Rhodes on the announce table with a run of back suplexes, then went over to taunt Rhodes’ wife Brandi, his mother and his sister in the front row. Brandi threw a drink in his face and Rhodes came back off the distraction.
Two referees went down across the finish. Rhodes took out the first by accident and Orton hit an RKO with nobody to count it. Rhodes hit Orton in the face with the steel steps and opened a cut on his forehead, then landed three Cross Rhodes and set up for the punt. Orton put his hands up and begged him not to throw it. Rhodes hesitated and shoved him away, a second official came in to check on Orton, and Orton hit a low blow that caught Rhodes and that referee at the same time. He hit the RKO and the first referee recovered to count the three.
That leaves the two level at one apiece in 2026, after Rhodes beat Orton on night one of WrestleMania 42 in April. Orton took time off after that match and came back at SummerSlam to cost Rhodes the Undisputed WWE Championship, hitting an RKO during his match with CM Punk. Aldis made the rematch on the August 15 SmackDown.
The mercy spot is the part that will carry forward. Rhodes had the punt available and did not throw it, and Orton won inside a minute of being spared.
The show was the first time WWE has moved Saturday Night’s Main Event to a Sunday. Elsewhere on the card, Trick Williams beat Baron Corbin for the United States Championship after Lil Yachty survived a five-minute challenge against Corbin, and Bronson Reed returned during Oba Femi against Bron Breakker.
