WWE superstar Cody Rhodes was the latest guest on today’s edition of The Bump, where the American Nightmare spoke about the rise of Universal champion Roman Reigns, and how he has a great deal of respect for former WWE champion, Drew McIntyre. Highlights from the interview are below.
Talks the rise of Roman Reigns:
“I think it’s a feather in the cap of what Roman Reigns is doing. When I left here, Roman Reigns was on top, and I think Roman Reigns was experiencing some of the negative byproducts of being on top, some of the pushback that a new face and a new individual (experiences). But the thing that makes a new champion in any company, in anything, is consistency. And when he said ‘Dallas, Texas, acknowledge me’, and whether they’re supposed to boo, cheer, whatever that might be, they acknowledged him. You want to know a term that’s often really overused in what we do? It’s ‘over.’ ‘Oh, this guy is so over. She’s so over.’ No, over is years and years and years of work where fans follow you. Part of my song is ‘I’ll follow you until the end’, that’s how I feel about the fans, and hopefully that’s a mutual thing. He has truly gotten over, via consistency and via hard work. And what he has going now with Paul Heyman and the Usos, it’s a very, I don’t want to use this word because I don’t want to sound like a, gotta be careful with my language here, is an intimidating presence.”
Says he’s looking forward to crossing path with Reigns in WWE:
“I just look forward to, obviously again, it exists. There’s a match out there that is likely ‘the’ match that exists out there. But before the matches, you have to cross paths in some capacity, and we haven’t yet. And I look forward to that because consistency did it. It pulled the wagon, it’s still pulling the wagon. And I do, to a degree, know what it feels like. And again, I look forward to that interaction. It’s a good one to have on the list. That could be the list itself.”
Says he has all the respect in the world for Drew McINtyre:
“I just had all the respect in the world for Drew, because he’s a really great athlete,” Rhodes said. “And he’s a nice hybrid athlete. WWE has a lot of big boys, which I’m kind of getting there, I’m kind of a big boy myself. So I like kind of like being in heavyweight wrestling, so he’s a great heavyweight wrestler. I think Drew has the biggest chip on his shoulder ever, because his hottest moment came in front of nobody. So I think a lot of people want to see what’s next. So I look forward to what he’ll do next.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)