Just What IS Cody Rhodes' WWE Story Anyway?!
All the while, looking back, you can see what Cody wanted to be. He was once asked why he used to wear his trunks as highly as he did, why he didn’t for a time wear knee pads. He wanted to evoke memories of the likes of Nick Bockwinkel, embodying the sepia-tinged elegance of old. He successfully campaigned for the return of Reggie Parks’ classic Intercontinental design, albeit with a white strap. He sensed that something was fundamentally wrong with modern wrestling, that it was broken and had lost sight of itself. In his own very small and mostly insignificant ways - GUNTHER did exponentially more for the ‘IC’ title than a well-intentioned bid for nostalgia - Cody wanted to return to what worked and what should never have gone away. He’d get there, the long way.
The issue there was that Cody lost his war on two fronts. WWE itself was never going to listen to a top star, much less Cody Rhodes: functional, a grafter, never really that over. The fandom, too, was out of step with Cody’s ideals. While bringing back the old title design was very welcome, Cody himself was unfashionable. When he grew into himself as a performer, his style wasn’t what was “in”. In the early 2010s, great, futuristic bell-to-bell action was a novelty. That all changed deeper into the decade, to such an extent that even John Cena reinvented himself as a PWG workrate guy. Daniel Bryan and CM Punk led that change, and Triple H was savvy enough to launch his bid proper as the heir apparent by emphasising great, acclaimed wrestling as the focal point of NXT. New Japan Pro Wrestling became the #2 promotion in the United States. The paradigm has since shifted, so far that LA Knight is infinitely more over than Johnny Gargano, but when Cody was deep into his WWE run, his work, bluntly, wasn’t cool enough to get the fans on-side. He had certain moments - they’ll be covered imminently - but when Cody voluntarily left WWE, very few people truly thought that WWE had overlooked and “fumbled” a “generational talent”.
Context is important when analysing the circumstances surrounding Cody's departure from WWE.
That Cody was simply permitted to leave, no questions asked, says rather a lot about his all-consuming influence over the industry. He wasn't warehoused. WWE didn't frantically search through his medical history to give themselves an excuse to add time to his deal. They didn't feel the need to loophole anything. What was Cody going to do: get a gig in TNA?
This is just one of the many things that changed after 2016.
In May of 2016, there was nothing for WWE to fear. They were entirely comfortable on their perch.
Somehow.
The television WWE produced around this time was bleak, despite it being one of the better-received years in WWE's rotten Vince McMahon twilight era. Watching it, you could be halfway convinced that WWE was intent on pushing a youth movement of sorts; after Roman Reigns dethroned Triple H in the tedious slog that was the WrestleMania 32 main event, Roman's Wellness Policy violation led to a welcome intra-Shield WWE title picture. That, on the surface, was refreshing, but then Dean Ambrose had to dress as the Mountie. When he wasn't cosplaying as old midcarders in terrible sight gags, he was getting b*llocked by Stephanie McMahon for dressing scruffily. When the heel Stephanie McMahon wasn't berating the babyface Dean Ambrose for the way in which he presented himself, she was scolding the heel Charlotte Flair for disowning her father. When Stephanie wasn't punishing Charlotte Flair, she was making Mick Foley's life miserable. Stephanie bemoaned Mick constantly for his apparent incompetence in the General Manager role. The key thread of WWE Monday Night Raw was Foley's ineptitude. For no discernible reason. This was never paid off, via, for example, a WrestleMania match in which Foley and Steph would each pick a representative for a WrestleMania 33 match held to determine who would gain control over the show. After almost a full year of this tedious administration and relentless bullying, Foley was fired in storylines and beaten up by - yes - Triple H. The whole thing seemed to play out because the McMahons enjoyed torturing people onscreen - people, in Foley's case, who broke their bodies for the promotion and stuck up for it at the expense of his dignity. If Mick Foley was treated like that, what chance did a midcard act like Cody Rhodes have?
One of the apparently better years of the 2010s was still cursed with an off-putting we-know-best mentality that had long since filtered into the product, and to underscore that, the well-received SmackDown product felt slightly different and almost feel-good for a few months before Vince decided that it should be Raw II.
Cody was correct not to trust the process. Everything went to sh*t again.
Goldberg defeated Kevin Owens for the Universal title at Fastlane 2017, putting an end to the popular Owens Vs. Chris Jericho programme as a main event concern. Bill was then defeated by Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33, after which the idea of a part-time mercenary reached a bleak, parodic nadir. To underscore the feeling that WWE had become an anti-meritocracy, Jinder Mahal defeated Randy Orton for the WWE championship 49 days later at Backlash 2017. The idea - the failure of an idea - was for Jinder to front a big push into the Indian market. For the majority of 2017, Jinder was not over. WWE hadn't even gone to the bother of patterning his push after Vladimir Kozlov's. Kozlov was as boring and unappealing as Jinder was, but WWE at least tried to obscure how much Vince just fancied pushing him because he wanted to push him and, with no competition, he could. Kozlov defeated all comers for six months before failing at the end. He famously beat the Undertaker. Cleanly. That push, incidentally, was one of many developments that unfolded since 2001 that alienated much of the fanbase. The rot - the conditions for the change Cody effected - set in long before WWE's disastrous 2010s period. Jinder was a different deal altogether.
Two days before becoming #1 contender on the April 18 SmackDown, Jinder lost a handicap match alongside Titus O'Neil to the Big Show at a live event. On the April 11 SmackDown - the week before you were asked to receive Jinder as your new top heel - he did a job to Mojo Rawley. In three minutes. Vince just woke up one day and wanted to do something senseless because he could. That was the state of play. You had never mattered less.
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