Just What IS Cody Rhodes' WWE Story Anyway?!
It wasn't just WrestleMania season, during which, from 2011 until very recently, the most important slots on the card were reserved by part-time nostalgia acts (in his 19-year association with WWE, Ziggler, a man who held gold on 15 separate occasions, never once worked a singles match at WrestleMania in front of fans). That was the big tell that you were a fool to invest in the rank-and-file all year 'round, but this mentality drove everything. The Gratitude Era performed talking head duties on the endless deluge of Attitude Era retrospectives produced by the WWE Network, recast as fawning marks. They were made to dress up as the Superstars of yore in dot com photo shoots, to wear the old classic titles that fans believed in more than the uglier participation trophies that were handed out to one and all as Vince failed completely to grasp the man-makes-the-title philosophy. The Attitude Era cast a shadow over everything on a macro and micro level. Ahead of WrestleMania XXVII in 2011, Triple H rather unhelpfully articulated the toxic mentality at the core of the company. He challenged the Undertaker to a match on the basis that there were no real challenges left in the back. "Not really".
Cody resented this, and rightly so. He was in the shadow of the Attitude Era to such a huge extent that he, as Stardust, was forced to cosplay as a character that had peaked well before that period had begun in earnest. He knew something needed to change, but change felt impossible.
His conviction drove that early Road To... promo, in which he deftly overlapped the mission statement of AEW with his own personal tale of the "prodigal son". This incredible promo was proof that wrestlers were far better at this sort of thing than some Hollywood failure of a writer. Cody had cut the fabled unscripted promo before AEW even landed on TNT. He had positively embarrassed WWE's approach to the brother versus brother story. An abysmal distraction finish versus an emotionally intense interview: that match was more of a bloodbath than the classic in Las Vegas.
In retrospect, much as Cody felt like a perennial midcard act at the time, it was clear that there was one thing holding Cody back from discovering the megastar within. Unfortunately for Cody, that one thing was the entity that monopolised pro wrestling and was the only viable place from which major money could be earned.
WWE broke a specific promise to Cody Rhodes in February 2016. He was told that, after WrestleMania, he’d revert to the Cody character. The death of his father in June 2015 rendered the Stardust act yet more untenable. He teased this direction on social media. He had new gear made. He was excited. It didn’t happen; Vince abandoned the idea and proceeded with the dead joke that was Stardust. An angry and determined but unfancied Rhodes left WWE outright.
In a long, since-deleted Twitter missive, he buried the writers, alleging that two unnamed key staffers, believed to be Ed Koskey and Ryan Ward, for “pretending to be on their clearly powered off laptop, barely listening to an idea I considered beneficial to more than one talent”. WWE is rarely framed as a pleasant place to work, but Christ almighty: the writers, allegedly, made the vintage “Let me just type that up on my invisible typewriter!” Simpsons bit a reality.
As was often the case, Cody showed infinitely more personality after he appeared on WWE television.
In the ultimate irony, Cody Rhodes cut his best promo under the WWE banner before he was contracted to WWE. In 2007, he spoke before Dusty was inducted into the Hall of Fame. His impassioned, composed, witty speech drew rave reviews. He was projected for super-stardom within the inside circles that knew he was, at that time, training down in Louisville. He’d never cut a promo in WWE that good again, at least until he returned in 2022 with much in the way of leverage. The difference is that, between 2007 and 2016, everything he said was written by some hack.
Cody had an idea to endear himself to the cynical, suspicious indie fanbase, and his total charm offensive worked to an extent that nobody could reasonably predict. He was humble. He knew what and who was hot, and while he shored up in TNA for a time, he was clever enough to not do a “TNA run” proper. Sensing the value in the “interloper” arc, he first wrote a list of names that he wanted to wrestle. Again, context is key here. There are very few forbidden doors left in 2024. The idea of an ex-WWE guy trying to mix it up with wrestlers you’d never see in WWE - the Young Bucks, Katsuyori Shibata - was a truly wild mish-mash of things eight years prior. Cody was an expert marketer; in his very first ploy as a true independent contractor, his mission statement, he made wrestling feel borderless and interesting.
Cody reinvented himself as the humble travelling babyface who thanked the top guys in the various promotions he worked, never stealing focus. He didn’t win the PWG World title, the WCPW World title. He was happy to be there or, more cynically, he was astute enough to not impose himself. He was very conscious about appearing like the entitled major league star bilking the promoter out of a payday. He played his indie run masterfully, and in ROH, he was incredibly over. Remarkably so; he still hadn’t mastered the timeless rhythms of his preferred in-ring approach, and seemed to be a step down from the workrate demigods that elevated the World title lineage. And yet, he was received as the superstar babyface in his win over beloved gatekeeper Christopher Daniels at the ROH Fifth Anniversary show on June 23, 2017. The charm offensive had worked.
Things were clicking - but New Japan Pro Wrestling was trickier.
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