7 Second Generation Superstars Who Will Surpass Their Parents
2. Cody
The late Dusty Rhodes was a wrestling icon.
Though he may have held the pencil whilst telling some of his best stories against Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen during his 1980s peak, 'The Son Of A Plumber' could talk thousands into buildings to watch his major matches and talk his way into the hearts of millions more to catch his exploits on television and pay-per-view. His latter legacy was as an NXT/Performance Center cornerstone - a learning tree for today's best and tomorrow's brightest alike to sit underneath.
His youngest son Cody is none of these things. Yet.
If this list is about potential, there is simply nobody else that fits the description more in 2018. Rhodes gambled on himself - a rarer trait in the era of WWE experiencing unprecedented global dominance - when he left the company in 2016, and hasn't looked back since. In two years, he's redefined himself as a worker just barely underneath the world's elite, taken cuts from record-setting merchandise cheques, and orchestrated the biggest independent wrestling show of the modern era - potentially the biggest ever. He's a wrestler, a sports entertainer, an innovator and an industry pioneer. He's also 33 - nearly a decade younger than his father was at his absolute peak.
Cody Rhodes isn't a wrestling icon. But potentially, he could be that and more.