Cody Rhodes appeared on the most recent episode of the IMPAULSIVE podcast.
During it, he recalled having an American Nightmare tattoo on his neck. He got the tattoo two days before competing for AEW, and it caused a commotion in a meeting about the show’s production. He said Jim Ross was staring at him the entire time and AEW President Tony Khan did not believe Rhodes would get the tattoo on his neck.
Rhodes said, “The tattoo on the neck… The dude drew it and I’ve always liked the design and ‘The American Nightmare’ design was what it was but, I powered through because I have one tattoo on my chest for my dad and stuff so I don’t have a lot of tattoos, and I’m powering through and he’s like, ‘Do you really want to take a break? You probably wanna take a break, right? You wanna take a break?’ And I kept thinking, ah, I’m good, I’m good. I wish I had took a break because I didn’t know it was double the size of the drawing I saw and I thought, oh my God, I’m wrestling in two days because he said, ‘Either do it months out or just two days before…’ I don’t know if it was a mistake or I wasn’t paying attention. A lot of people were like, ‘Neck? Neck? Neck?’ And then my boss at the time, this was when I was at AEW, he just thought, ‘No way. Not gonna be your neck’ and then I walked into the production meeting the next day… I remember Jim Ross was — legendary wrestling announcer Jim Ross — literally just (staring at me). The whole meeting was just staring at it. Not listening to anything.”
Rhodes also spoke highly of the late Jamin Pugh (Jay Briscoe). He told Logan about Jay’s talent in the ring.
“Whenever we lose a great wrestler, we just lost one with Jay Briscoe. He was ROH. Whenever we lose a great wrestler, my sister always says, ‘Man, the matches in heaven are great tonight’ and if I think about it, what a super card… It sucks to see somebody who puts in so much time but yeah, that’s a great way to really honor what we do here and now, honor their legacy. I’m not sure how familiar you (Logan Paul) are with Jay Briscoe but as you learn and get more indoctrinated in the business. When I went to ROH, again, another part of this excursion, that guy was it. He was the deal.”
Rhodes shared a story from Japan prior to the official announcement of All Elite Wrestling.
When he and other wrestlers were in an elevator, Rhodes would play Shane McMahon’s “Here Comes the Money” theme as a foreshadowing of what was to come. That, according to Rhodes, was not well received.
“You mentioned the excursion I went on and doing it but when I plugged back into, all right, not even just WWE but when we were starting up the other promotion (AEW), the money was large and I had been away from the large money for a while and I was in Tokyo Dome Hotel getting ready for this big show, Wrestle Kingdom, they have for New Japan. It’s a great show. But I knew in a few weeks, it was gonna go down. We’re gonna announce it to the world and we’re gonna be on an actual real network. This is happening. So Shane’s music is ‘Here Comes the Money.’ It’s a very signature music, so every time I get on the elevator with the other guys who are in the group with me, I would play that music and there was all these other wrestlers (who would look back). I mean, we were the enemy. We were leaving, they didn’t know why… And I just played it to the point where now I can’t see Shane (McMahon) and not be like, man, I ruined your song. Playing it everywhere.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription)
