After taking care of business against Brock Lesnar and working a trios match on RAW with Seth Rollins and Shinsuke Nakamura against the men of The Judgment Day, Cody Rhodes was afforded his first crack at televised singles action against Finn Balor since all the way back in April, when the two wrestled a match before they really dialed into their respective feuds for Money in the Bank and SummerSlam.

Stopping by the backstage area with Byron Saxton to talk about the main event match before it happened, Rhodes noted that he's unconcerned that Balor has been flying off the wall as of late, as you sort of need to be a loose cannon to be successful in the WWE Universe.

“You've got to be a loose cannon to do this gig, right?” Cody Rhodes asked Byron Saxton. “To a degree, I admire Finn Balor, he was a leader in Ireland at the start of his career, a leader in Japan, and now a leader here with The Judgment Day, a group that is vying for supremacy not just on Monday Night RAW, but WWE as a whole. But he's not the only leader in that group, is he? Damian Priest, Mr. Money in the Bank, that's an alpha dog, that's a leader, Rhea Ripley, bonified star, and then there's ‘Dirty' Dom, whose uh, submissive, right, but a champion nonetheless. They're dangerous, trying to take out Sami Zayn, already having taken out Liv Morgan and Kevin Owens, and tonight, I'll be ready for Finn Balor; I have not wrestled in Winnipeg in years, I have friends here, I plan to make this count, and I am ready for Finn Balor, and I will be ready for The Judgment Day.”

Taking the ring against Balor in the main event, Rhodes secured the win like he so often does, bringing his televised win streak to six and ushering on a post-match beatdown from the rest of The Judgment Day that even an assist from Sami Zayn couldn't thwart. If this is the true start of a legitimate feud between Rhodes and Balor, then Paul “Triple H” Levesque decided to start it off with a bang.

Cody Rhodes is looking for the “ultimate pop.”

Sitting down for an interview with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful in the lead-up to SummerSlam, Cody Rhodes was asked about the reactions he received from audiences at the end of his AEW run versus his current firecracker ride through the WWE Universe.

Though Rhodes admitted that he's been treated well in both places, the WWE Universe has seemingly embraced him to a much bigger degree than any other audience he's wrestled for thus far.

“In both places, the reactions were wild. Arthur Ashe Stadium, I remember, in a way, you think, ‘This is the coolest thing ever.' There is this narrative that people want to push that we ‘Weren’t trying for that.' No, we were absolutely trying for that. It was happening, and it was fun,” Cody Rhodes said via Fightful. “I enjoyed it, not to the degree that I enjoy this, because this is times 100. No matter what times in the night when it happens, there is something special when it happens here. I don’t have one that I favor. The thing I favor is still being built, it’s still happening. The ultimate reaction, the ultimate pop, it doesn’t come every night; it comes maybe once. Once in a career, once in a lifetime. That’s what I’m trying to build to.”

Asked a follow-up question by SRS, whether or not he felt his reactions would lesson after losing to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39, Rhodes said no, as he has great respect for the WWE Universe and has taken it upon himself to try as hard as he can to deliver for the fans.

“You always feel a sense of responsibility, but you don’t want to be carny where you’re trying to work them,” Rhodes noted. “Working them, you can, but what’s best is to work with the audience. You’re never trying to hoodwink people into believing you’re a bad guy or believing you’re a good guy. That’s like running a political campaign. Just saying it sounds slim. For me, I just had a lot of confidence. Ego was full, confidence was at an all-time high that, I am better than everybody here, and I’m going to bring that in the most positive way I can here and deliver on Monday nights, every week, and hopefully deliver on the big PLEs as often as they come. I had a lot of confidence. The only time my confidence was really rattled was when I tore my pec. I don’t like inconsistency. In my former gig, I barely believed in injuries. You have to believe in them, but you have to have that toil mindset of ‘tape it up and go to the ring.’ I know that’s not the proper mindset; I would not encourage anyone other than me. When that happened, I felt, maybe I’m one of those guys. One of those guys who gets there and ‘Maybe it can’t handle it,' which is why it’s so important that I wrestled. I didn’t want to call out sick. Just the thought of that, my head is spinning. I had to do it.”

Will the day eventually come when Rhodes' pops aren't so big? Maybe yes, maybe no, but if he keeps jumping from marquee foe to marquee foe, from Seth Rollins to Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, and now Finn Balor, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen any time soon.