As noted, Cody Rhodes appeared on The Breakfast Club for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling on Tuesday morning.
In addition to the highlights from the interview that we previously published here on the website, where ‘The American Nightmare’ spoke about being nervous over WWE’s reaction to him taking time off for ‘Street Fighter’, the Undisputed WWE Champion also addressed speculation over his past departure from AEW, the current WWE roster being “older than ever” and young talent being prominently featured at WrestleMania 42.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On how “no one’s been even close” to guessing real reason for AEW departure: “Our departure from when we left the company we were with and helped create, and that was AEW, it came down to her deciding to not talk about it, that departure,” Cody said. “Like, ‘We’re not going to talk about it. We’re moving on. Did bad stuff happen? Good stuff happened too. I’m not going to talk about it. And one of the sad things about not talking about why we left and the departure, one of the difficult things was narratives get created. Stories get told, podcasts happen, fans literally think they know what happened when no one’s been even close. And what I would say is the selfless part, she lives with that. She owns that. She respects not just here, but the place we left enough to, ‘I’m not going to talk about that.’ And that made it so that — they’re good. They’re out of here. That was very, very helpful for us. And again, good stuff happened there too. But that’s what I mean by selfless, because she lives with that.”
On the current WWE roster being “older than ever”: “Well, it goes in phases. So in like the golden 80s, it was, we used to joke, wrestler prime for the man was 35 to 42. That’s in the golden 80s, and that’s because they needed all that experience psychologically. They worked, they’d did this town to town, the live crowds are everything. How do you work with a live crowd? How do you involve them with this? We’re not doing this just for each other and we’re not doing this just for the camera. How are they involved? That now has cycled back because a few years ago they brought in, it was what I’d say is like all freshmen on a varsity team. There’s this famous picture of me and CM Punk and Matt Cardona and we’re all babies and we had won the big titles, but we didn’t have a clue really at that point. We didn’t have that experience. So now I think you’re getting back into where you’ve got, I know exactly who we’re talking about here. Roman, me, Punk, Randy, the main events of WrestleMania. I just like to say it’s a very experienced crew.”
On young talent being prominently featured at WrestleMania 42: “WrestleMania in general, you’re going to see, because you mentioned the old, the good thing about it is you get to see the new too. You get to see the young too. We’re reloading. It’s very clear we’re reloading, and that’s great. It puts the fire on me, and I like that. But it’s the biggest thing we do. It’s the best thing we do. If you’re ever going to step in, if you don’t like wrestling, if you kind of used to like it, going to a WrestleMania can tell you – if this is gonna be for you, and I think it’s for everybody.”
Cody Rhodes defends the Undisputed WWE Championship against Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42, which takes place on April 18 and April 19 from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, NV.
