With Brock Lesnar officially in his rearview mirror, Cody Rhodes now has one thing and one thing only on his mind alone: #CompletingTheStory by dethroned Roman Reigns.

With a trade to SmackDown feeling more and more likely, Rhodes has a chance to go all-in on the biggest feud of his professional wrestling career, working his way through The Bloodline, granted, with a few twists and turns potentially along the way, on the way to his ultimate goal of winning the WWE Championship his father never could.

Speaking on this Tuesday with the Taskmaster podcast, WCW legend Kevin Sullivan endorsed Rhodes finally dethroning Reigns at WrestleMania 40, noting that after suffering a huge loss in 2023, 2024 should be the year of the “American Nightmare.”

“I think that if Cody had won, he would have got a backlash. People saying, ‘Oh, he just comes in and wins the belt while these guys have been here for years, busting their a**es night after night, night after night?' He needs to win the belt, but he needs to do what his father did if he's playing his father's story. His father put the heels over first, dumped all the heat, all the adversity. Then he beat Brock with a broken arm. I think they're doing it perfectly. Now, I think if they're going to WrestleMania 40, it's time. You can't give the people what they want [right away]. You've got to make them salivate for it,” Kevin Sullivan said via Fightful.

“I think that when he does [defeat Roman], then they have all four Samoans sitting right there. There's all kinds of heels. Gunther, they have a stacked group of guys. I think this is the best talent they've had since the Attitude Era. I also think the next step for Roman is Hollywood.”

Is Sullivan on the money? Should Rhodes become the new face of WWE and run through all of the heels the promotion has to offer, from Imperium through The Bloodline? If Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson doesn't take the match, which is now the hot rumor thanks to his appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, then that's probably the best course of action.

Cody Rhodes has major praise for Bruce Prichard.

Turning the page from one luminary praising Cody Rhodes to the “American Nightmare” complementing one of his own, the “Grandson of a Plummer” discussed his admiration for Bruce Prichard, who helped been helping him along for the entirety of his professional career in WWE.

“At the time, when I was in OVW, the one that I needed to impress the most was a man named Bruce Prichard. He is a genius, remains a genius, in the industry, and he was Vince’s right hand. You need someone to write down all these ideas, someone to formulate. Bruce came down and knew was he was looking at. He knew me, knew that my dad cared. You could have done it as a favor for my dad, but the best favor he could do for my dad is lead me in the correct way. To this day, Bruce is still plugged in to WWE, he’s the main guy,” Cody Rhodes told Dale Earnhardt Jr on his Dale Jr Download podcast.

“When I lost at WrestleMania, I was adamant that I was walking up the ramp. I’m not going side ramp or ‘losers lane.’ It’s the end of the show, 80,000 people, I want to look them in the eye, say sorry or ‘we’re going to get him eventually.’ When I walked up there, I wasn’t sure I was ready to walk into Gorilla. I took a second and [Bruce] came out the curtain. He was just him and I. We had a nice moment and I’ll never forget it. In my mind, I was like, ‘I need to reverse this situation and we have this moment again.’ Bruce has been a big part of my career that I didn’t realize was a big part of my career until I got older.”

From OVW through WrestleMania 39, SummerSlam 2023, WrestleMania 40, and beyond, Rhodes has been through a lot as a member of the WWE Universe, and has even more in front of him that he has yet to accomplish. While only time will tell if Rhodes is able to overcome the odds and make all of his WWE dreams come true, it's safe to say Prichard will be there right alongside him, crafting the creative and hoping to keep Dusty's lasting legacy alive in the company he helped to craft as a wrestler and a coach.