10 Things We Learned From American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes
7. Why NXT Was “Maddening” To Him
Countless members of WWE's current roster viewed Dusty Rhodes as a mentor during their NXT days. Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Bayley, Kevin Owens and many others have gone on record to describe Dusty as akin to a father figure, and... that always bugged the sh*t out of Cody.
The 'Dream' wasn't chuffed with WWE's treatment of Cody as Stardust back between 2014-2015, and he'd actively encouraged his son to quit if he wasn't happy either. The worst thing about all of this to Cody? NXT's young "Dusty kids" like Rollins and Reigns were heating up, and here he was playing a watered down version of Goldust without experiencing even half the success.
In the doc, Cody likened that to his dad having a baseball team but telling him he wasn't allowed to play. Triple H then kinda half-heartedly defended the Stardust idea by saying WWE cares more about the overall brand than individuals. Fair enough, but everyone thought the gimmick was rubbish by 2015.
No wonder Cody was miserable.