WWE star Cody Rhodes recently appeared on The Masked Man Show for an interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Rhodes talked about his WWE return at WrestleMania 38 and navigating the locker room as a bus guy, what he learned from veteran WWE Superstar John Cena, and more. Below are highlights:
His WWE return in 2022 and navigating the locker room as a bus driver:
“I felt almost like, no one made me feel this way, I felt almost like an outsider and to a degree a bit like an enemy. Because we had put on such a battle on Wednesday nights and I had done things and said things and there weren’t things you can walk back, there are things you live with and there’s reasons for them and you stand by them, but as much as I might have felt that way, I was met with familiar faces like a Kofi Kingston. And then I was met with the ultimate individual, a Seth Rollins, who’s carrying Raw and just so good. And for him to not look at me as the enemy, but for him to look at me as an asset and Seth and I genuinely, if you ask him the same thing if he was sitting in the chair, he’d tell you, he doesn’t like me, I don’t like Seth, we’re not going to get along ever. However, the utmost respect for him and for him to look at me as an asset made me not worry about what anyone else was thinking. And, in a pretentious way of answering this, I don’t really have the locker room experience. I should spend more time in the locker room because I have one of these buses.
So, I’m a busy guy, so when I walk in there I’m always making sure like, hey, hi guys, how are you, thanks for having me just because I don’t want them to think like, uh, this guy on his bus, changing suits every two minutes, this freaking guy is carrying this robe for him. So, I always try to invite people on the bus too. I try to lure them on there, but, you know, it’s different. You’re older, entering the prime of your career, that bus is so nice, man. Barclays, tonight, no buses, I’m gonna be back in the locker room tonight and look forward to it, you know. Locker Room’s so fun, get to know guys and like if I can get help from those who are there who have the help, I’d need it more than ever now I’m on the road to WrestleMania and I want to do everything right. But also, there’s a lot of young guys, to not like teach them or guide them or try to be some mentor to them but I have done it so I can always be a help in that sense or just be a shoulder, you know, like that’s really what a locker room is.
Not to use foul language here, but wrestlers bitch and complain a lot, it’s good when you have a good sounding board for it, you know, because then you get it out of your system, all right, where am I really at? It’s good. I want to be there for others because when I had great people in the locker room for me, you know, Glen (Kane) was like the last locker room leader. Edge, still to this day, you can be at the highest of highs in your career, but if you look at Edge, you have to know, he’s not going to sweat you, he’s main evented WrestleMania, he’s done it. And crazy thing, I ask the kids at The Nightmare Factory this all the time, who’s your favorite wrestler? You expect to hear Hogan, Flair, Rock, we hear Edge a lot now and it’s just because they grew up with Edge and John and I love hearing that. I hear Rey a lot too and I shouldn’t be shocked by these statements, but you know, my other partners there always like, it’s not Hogan, like, no, some of them haven’t even seen like Rock wrestle, they know The Rock, but they haven’t seen the ladder match with and Hunter and stuff like that and that just blows my mind. We’re getting older and this business has changed and they like different things, it’s nice to hear that.”
On whether he felt any obligation to become a locker room leader and what he learned from John Cena:
“I’ll tell you, so you mentioned, John Cena. John’s the ultimate role model, as far how he conducted himself, whether it was with the media, with the fans, the good fans, the more unruly fans, everything, I mean, he’s the ultimate role model. And before he became a bus guy, I got to drive him around a little bit and he was just talking but I was in my mind writing everything down that he was saying. He was really invaluable as a person to be around. So blown away by how he’s doing and what he’s doing. But I think, if you try to copy what he did, everyone’s got to do it their own way and I think my style, if I ever was to be somebody that was a locker room leader would just be the lead by example. I know because of my time in management and being an executive, as beneficial as that was to me and as educational as it was to me, sometimes it’s easier to lead by example, really versus telling them this is going to work or being so adamant that they need to do this and need to do that because everybody is different.
There is no true formula for success in sports entertainment and in pro wrestling, you know when your hear it, when they’re reacting, boos and cheers included in that. I think for me, I probably do it my way if I ever am in that spot and I kind of am. But, yeah, I’d like to do it my way. I loved how he did it. Dude was in his jean shorts and his shirt all show. The best thing I get from him that I tell the kids at The Nightmare Factory all the time is, don’t cover your ears, right, even if there’s like this small little rumble, he would always do something to reward their participation as a crowd, he would really make them interactive without letting them know they were interactive. And then the roar would be a little louder each time. It’s the Cena Rule, as we call it at The Nightmare Factory, if they’re doing something, you need to do something, doesn’t mean you gotta take it home or rush it, but you need to reward their noise. And I think that came from a sense in his time and I’m like psychoanalyzing why he felt this way, but I think it came from a sense of he was coming on the heels of giants, Rock, Austin and probably didn’t want to lose any bit of that participation.
Because we’re going out of these eras where everybody, you know, Godfather walking through the curtain, no knock on The Godfather, but the place is coming up and then they got less and less for just the industry as a whole. So, I think that he made it clear that, whenever you get something, you reward it. And I think that’s a good strategy now, because as healthy as the business is now and it is the healthiest it’s ever been, you still want it to keep moving upwards. And watching the Super Bowl last night and Undertaker is in a Super Bowl commercial. Logan Paul pumping that drink everywhere. But I was liking that commercial and then Patrick Mahomes is wearing the championship this morning, holding the Lombardi trophy, just you want more of that and hardcore fans don’t always understand, I’m a hardcore fan so I get it why we try to seek out some of those mainstream involvements, but it never hurts.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(H/T to Joshie Lopez and WrestlingHeadlines.com for the transcription)
