10 Tag Team Wrestlers Who Held Their Partners Back
3. Cody Rhodes
Cody Rhodes has had a long WWE career full of ups and downs, and he's spent much of it competing in the tag team division. While Rhodes was typically able to hold his own in these pairings (his teams with Ted DiBiase, Damien Sandow, and Drew McIntyre were fine at the time), he was genuinely overshadowed when he formed a team with his older brother.
Rhodes was in the midst of a rare face run when he ran afoul of The Authority and was fired in storyline. Goldust was brought in to try and win his brother's job back, but he failed. Ultimately, they won Cody's job back in a heated tag match with The Shield at Battleground 2013, then captured the WWE Tag Team Titles shortly thereafter.
The story was one of many designed to get Cody over, but fans responded to his more charismatic brother, Goldust. It wasn't long before audiences started chanting "We want Goldust!" while Cody was in the ring, and when the younger Rhodes became Stardust, it didn't help.
Maybe, in the end, WWE was trying to push the wrong Rhodes. Even though Goldust was in his mid-40s, he was the team member to whom the fans were responding. His 28-year-old brother was only holding him back.