Cody Rhodes' 10 Best In-Ring Rivals Post-WWE
8. Christopher Daniels
One of Cody Rhodes' biggest goals upon hitting the independent wrestling scene was to show the world he was indeed world championship material.
He received his first shot at Ring Of Honor's top title, the ROH World Championship, at War of the Worlds 2017, narrowly losing a three-way match against Jay Lethal and then-champ Christopher Daniels. Although Daniels was in the midst of a final hurrah as the holder of the world title at the time, that wasn't going to stop Rhodes from fulfilling his destiny at Best in the World by beating him for the prestigious prize.
From a pure storytelling standpoint, their championship clash that night was excellent. Daniels refused to stay down, but despite being the babyface going in, Cody was clearly favored by the crowd. That made the reaction to his long awaited world title win that much sweeter.
The two faced off in a rematch with the gold up for grabs on an episode of ROH TV nearly two months later, which carried a Best 2-out-of-3 Falls stipulation. It was every bit as perfectly crafted as their original encounter with Cody pulling out all the stops en route to victory.
They went on to have two more matches later on in the year and both bouts were equally entertaining.