Cody Rhodes has been adamant about finishing the story that his father, Dusty Rhodes, couldn’t finish in WWE.
The American Nightmare spoke about including his father in his storylines during a recent interview on Insight With Chris Van Vilet. Cody says that he’s been leaning away from mentioning his father for years, and decided that he’s finally ready to lean back in while he’s at his most popular.
Yeah, I was okay. I was definitely okay with it. I got to the point where at the end of my run with AEW and the beginning of my run with WWE, where I was really big on leaning in, like I’ve been leaning out for so long, I’ve been leaning out. Okay, there’s they’re starting to boo here. And you’re kind of split, Let’s lean into it. Let’s, let’s stir it up. And when I came back, and the story was a real story, that is actually what I talked to Vince and Bruce about in that meeting was, hey, here’s the WWWF title, I have it. Dan Lambert gave it to me. This is the whole reason I wanted to be in the business, this physical piece of [history] this thing right here, this belt, this championship belt.
Cody later explained how the mentality for leaning in to the Dusty story was that “it’s now or never” for him to chase the WWE’s world championship.
So, I was fine with leaning in. Because it feels like it’s now or never, in a sense, it’s now or never that there’s things you have to earn. And when you’re someone’s kid, and you’re second generation, third generation, you have them all at your disposal from the beginning. But there’s a difference from when you use them at the beginning and when you’ve earned them. And I felt like I’d earned them. And I remember Stephanie McMahon said this. She said use everything, use everything you have. And there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to use everything. Oh WrestleMania, the main event, essentially getting elected president is getting that match the final match, like use it all, use everything you have and leave no stone unturned. And she was right.
In a separate interview, Cody opened up about his loss to Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 39 and how he still feels stuck in that moment. You can read about that here.
(Thanks to Chris Van Vilet for sending us quotes)