Though the WWE Universe currently has all eyes on the Elimination Chamber in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Cody Rhodes still has his eyes on WrestleMania 39, as he's one of only two WWE Superstars with a guaranteed main event spot on the “Show of Shows.”
Sitting down for an interview with Ariel Helwani about WrestleMania 39, Rhodes was asked about being a second-generation Superstar and what it means to be not only representing his own legacy as a second-generation superstar but also the legacy of his father, the late, great, Dusty Rhodes.
“One thing that's burnt into my brain is, I forget if it was Eddie Guerrero — I was watching WWE with my dad, and he told me, ‘When people say, ‘He would have loved this,' don't ever let anyone say that about me.' That's burned into my brain,” Rhodes said via Fightful. “There's a rule. It's my rule. It's not a big, serious rule. If you don't know Dusty, like if he didn't train you in NXT, if he didn't work with you, if you're going for some cheap heat. You can't use him. He's not coming out here making the bionic elbow. He's not with us, right? In the case of what I'm doing now, I'm playing on the other team, and it's like, my dad is the head coach of the other team. Bayley, Kevin [Owens], Sami [Zayn], Seth [Rollins], particularly Seth, Roman [Reigns], all these people he helped. He didn't train me. Paul's not lying.”
“I know, there's kind of this fun [narrative of] ‘Cody's always crying. He's always talking about his dad.' There's probably going to be a lot of that because I think about him so much heading into this situation solely because I think he was one of the few people who thought this could happen to me. He would lose it if he knew I was wrestling Roman, one of his guys; in Hollywood, a place where he wanted me to be in the first place.”
There's no doubt about it: Rhodes is a star, he's doing media for WWE at a clip that would make Reigns jealous, and he's already declared that he's willing to be Paul “Triple H” Levesque's quarterback in the ring, so it's unlikely he'll push back too hard on whatever the company wants him to do. Whether AEW fans liked to give Rhodes a hard time for his overly mythologized style of storytelling, in a company like WWE, where everyone is scripted, Rhodes' repeated talk of and respect for wrestling history makes him incredibly hard to root against.
Cody Rhodes is incredibly proud of his fellow legacy wrestlers.
Elsewhere in his interview with Helwani, Rhodes decided to talk about how proud he is of other legacy wrestlers, as the door may be open for them to join, but it's ridiculously hard to stick around.
“The big secret, which is not a secret, because I've said this in every interview, is when you're a second generation, third generation, whatever. You do want to be like them, sure, but you want to be better than them,” Rhodes said. “When you say that, people are like, “How do you be better than Dusty? What a d*ck.' No, it's how you honor him.”
“If you're a second or third-generation, nepo babies, or whatever we're called. The door is wide open. You can come in, you get the job, and then you're held to the most ridiculous standard. Now we've got some major [second generation talent,] Dominik [Mysterio], Ava [Raine], Charlotte [Flair]; not knocking other fathers and mothers or anything like that, but we're dealing with some of the heaviest hitters. I consider Dusty that. Again, I think he would get such a big kick out of it.”
Rhodes then turned his attention to how, no matter how Wrestlemania 39 shakes out, he knows that his father would have gotten a kick out of just how much his fingerprints are on the card.
“Mr. Heyman said the exact thing that — I don't think he knew I needed to hear this, but I heard it,” Rhodes said. “He said it's not about him [Dusty Rhodes]. Bruce Prichard told me that, too. He said, ‘Nobody loves your dad more than me, but this is about you. That Nightmare logo isn't polka dots. All these kids with these little foam white belts? That's not red, white, and blue Dusty Rhodes tour shirts. They're into you.' That's an interesting thing to hear, right? You want it. You want it. You want it. Then, you're like, ‘Maybe I'm getting there. I just think that he would get a huge kick out of all his hand prints all over everything with WrestleMania. He's still giving to the business, even from the grave.”
Whether Rhodes win or loses at WrestleMania 39, and regardless of who his opponent may be at the “Show of Shows,” it's clear Dusty is looking down on his son with pride, even if Swerve Strickland absolutely hates it.
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