Cody Rhodes spoke with Ariel Helwani of BT Sport to promote his match against Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at night two of WrestleMania Goes Hollywood.
During the discussion, “The American Nightmare” reflected on his past WrestleMania match getting bumped and being used as a story line for an episode of Total Divas, as well as a funny backstage story from that night involving former United States President Donald Trump.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On how he felt when he was told that the match would not be happening and how it was later used as content for the Total Divas reality show: “There’s a part that happened that people may not know. My match getting cut. It did get cut at the 11th hour, but after some Jesse Venture style conspiracy theory on it, I don’t think the match was ever supposed to happen because they were filming ‘Total Divas’ at the time and that was a big plot thread. That makes me more mad, if I’m like a lamb to slaughter for ‘Total Divas.’ People liked ‘Total Divas,’ it’s still the standard in terms of doing these wrestling reality shows. I would have been like, ‘Let me in, let me make a scene. Let me be part of that.’ Here’s the thing people don’t know; our match got cut, Vince (McMahon) stood up and told us, ‘Hey guys, we have to do it tomorrow.’ What I hated the most is that everyone in there was like, ‘Alright, yeah.’ I was staring a hole through him. I knew I couldn’t fist fight, that wasn’t on my mind, but I didn’t want him to think I was happy. I didn’t want him to think, ‘Oh cool, the biggest event we have every year that we’re ready to rock for isn’t going to happen.’ It made me not like P. Diddy too because he had a musical performance and it was real long. I thought, ‘We could have done the match in the beginning of this musical thing.’ I stare a hole through him, I’m very upset, I’m sure he could have cared less.”
On how while he was moping around afterwards backstage he bumped into former U.S. President Donald Trump: “I go and sit under the stage. I didn’t want to freak out. You don’t want to lash out at anybody. People are doing their jobs and working hard. Mania is moving on with or without me. I went and sat under the stage, and looking down, I felt this foot kick my foot. It was Donald Trump. He was walking back, he had his whole posse, he’s walking back and is like, ‘excuse me young man.’ I had to shimmy my legs to the side for these 50 people he had with him. I had to get out of the way for Donald. It was kind of a sobering moment. ‘Hey, life is moving on.’”
Check out the complete interview via the YouTube player embedded below. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
