Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes took a moment on his “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” podcast to publicly thank his guest, Damian Priest, for being an incredibly professional and supportive “dance partner” during a time when Rhodes was severely ill on a WWE live event tour. Rhodes revealed he had food poisoning but still had to wrestle Priest in a series of steel cage matches.
“I, on the Christmas loop, was wrestling you in steel cages,” Rhodes began. “And the night in Boston… I was on the bus, nearly dead.” He described his condition: “I had what I thought was maybe a stomach bug. It ended up just being food poisoning, but I thought we’re gonna need to go to the hospital… I’m shivering. Temperatures just a blazing… It’s everything you could think of. It’s the worst it’s ever been.”
Despite his condition, Rhodes had to perform in the main event cage matches. “I came and I told you, I said, ‘Hey, I’m a little sick, so just, you know, be mindful. Maybe don’t kick me in the stomach,’ which the first thing all wrestlers would do is, like, kick a guy in the stomach,” Rhodes recounted. He then saw Priest realize the true severity of his illness. “And then you saw me go to a trash can next to you, where I [threw up] about 30 pounds of fluid right there… I remember you looking at me and going, ‘Oh…'”
Rhodes praised Priest for how he handled their matches over the next three nights while Rhodes was still sick. “We wrestled, and it continued for three nights after that… and you were I was like a little baby bird, and you took care of me,” Rhodes said. “I could not have asked for a more professional dance partner in that moment… I wanted to thank you for it.”
Priest responded, “Look, that’s one of those. It’s like, ‘Man Cody’s responsible for the house. We got to do our part.’… I was like, ‘okay, like, let me make this really easy for him.’… We just both knew what we had to do, and we did it.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit What Do You Wanna Talk About? with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.