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Cody Rhodes On Leaving AEW For WWE, Meeting With Vince, WrestleMania 39 Loss To Roman Reigns
WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the premiere of "American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes" in Atlanta, GA. He talks about his decision to leave AEW and go back to WWE, wrestling Seth Rollins with a torn pec at HIAC, how the meeting with Vince McMahon went before he re-signed with WWE, how the "WOAH" in his entrance caught on, the origins of "Finish the story", the biggest things that have changed in WWE since he left in 2016, his new documentary which debuts on Peacock on July 31 and much more!
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Quote I'm thinking about:
"All great changes are preceded by chaos" - Deepak Chopra
“What has changed? I lost my phone in a hotel room, right, and we were talking about AEW, and we were in Miami, and was at the NFL owners meeting. Because that makes sense. That makes sense. I do really appreciate that Tony took me to multiple NFL events. Only because one time I got on the elevator with Emmitt Smith. And he asked me is this where we go to the bus? Is the bus at two he asked me like I was part of it. And I remember going I remember thinking like should I tell him? No, I I’m just at the hotel. Instead. I go yep. I literally just I didn’t want to ruin it. Like he’s he’s gonna walk out there and find out, there’s gonna be plenty of like the red coats and the gold coats of they’ll figure it out. But Yeah Emmitt asked me if this bus leave it to you, man. Yeah, it does. I appreciate that my NFL time just because I love the NFL. And to see these owners and this crazy just world I remember like, Brandi got a big hug from Roger Goodell talking about Michigan. Yeah, yeah, it was another lifetime, but that’s what I was at that hotel for.”
“I know. I think I PayPaled you for some AEW work too.”
“Yeah, that’s how professional I was, PayPal. We got it done, though. Yeah, I mean, when you look at the doc, it’s wild to think at the time, no clue. But now looking back at it, it’s like there was no other way. It’s very, it’s very odd, and I’m not a big story of destiny type. But man, I should be because this, this has been one and I’ve just been lucky to ride it for sure.”
“Well, the schedule at WWE, like first out of the gate when you think of returning to WWE, you think of what that schedule can be. It’s very daunting, because they’re trying to cover everywhere on the map. And then wherever the TV goes, WWE goes. The schedule has been lessened, there’s a healthier schedule. I mean, I’m literally thinking of all the things that are different. The live events are branded now, you know, Saturday Night’s Main Event, Sunday Stunner, the VIP element that’s around the ring. I don’t know if people realize this who only see Raw or SmackDown. At the live events, this VIP service that they offer is just the best bang for your buck, they’ve figured it out. They have figured it out. His name’s Billy who runs that, and it’s one of my favorite things about the live events. But the main thing, and the far more important thing that’s changed is the people who run it the same, it’s the same [people] who run it. But they now run it, and it’s a bunch of grown men and women now in a sense of the actual talent. Seth Rollins is not a child, it’s not Tyler Black coming from Ring of Honor anymore. He’s a grown man who knows the psychology of a crowd, how he can move them, how he can not, and that’s across the board. Jey Uso is a completely different animal. Sami Zayn, just like a true artist, Kevin Owens having experienced the ebbs and flows of it all, and that creates the environment we’re in, and the environment we’re in is the business of it. It has been so good, sell out, sell out, sell out. They’re not random, I don’t take them for granted. You don’t want to, at any moment they could end, but they’re there because you have an experienced group of guys and girls, and that’s been the biggest difference. When I was there the first time I was a kid, and I was blossoming into what it’s like to be, you know, in your 30s, professional wrestler who has experience working with some of the top names, but still, it’s no substitute for what we have now. There’s no substitute for that experience. And that’s what you see with these shows and I think that’s one of the leading factors. Obviously Roman, but that’s a leading factor into how this business is like, like just everywhere they go the transaction is through the roof. And that’s why.”
“That’s a good question, I think he laughed. He has that like, [impersonates Vince laugh] I think he laughed. Because I kind of snuck in. But I like leaned over him, and I think he kind of laughed. I remember going in to talk to him. I wasn’t afraid of anything, and I was overcompensating almost. I was very adamant of like, I’m not, I’ve used the Bernie Mac reference a bunch, but he walks out and the crowds kind of booing him, he tells me he’s not scared of them. That’s really where I was at. It’s like, we’re good. Not scared of anything here, let’s talk. And I was almost overcompensating because both Vince and Bruce were so welcoming. So, this is the term I can use, sweet, and so positive about what I had done. And the fact that they knew what I had done and actually were citing different things, like I saw this, I saw this, I couldn’t believe it. It was very self affirming. And it just went like that type of happy go lucky. We’re talking about, I had, you know, Liberty was a year old or maybe not even at that time. And he’s talking to me about what it’s like to be a you know, a dad for a daughter and how special it is, it was just beautiful. And then like in the last 20 seconds of the meeting it was, Seth Rollins at WrestleMania, you know, that’s where the only business came up. And it was, I told Brandi I would say this, but I was adamant about saying please don’t do one of those hey, this is the deal, if you leave it’s off the table, don’t do one of those. I have to leave and think about it. I have to. And even in your mind, you’re like yep, I think we’re gonna do that. Even your mind, I have to leave to think about it and take some time because man, we had made such massive decisions. And I’m kind of a career left turn guy with, no way would he do this, well he did that. So this one was going to be something similar but really special. Didn’t feel like a meeting until maybe the last 30 seconds.”
“So you know, the whoa had been in different versions of Downstait music for me. Yeah, the whoa had been present. So I think really you’d have to say Kevin Dunn, because Kevin, he looked at an AEW entrance of mine, and I said it has to be this. This is what it is, I’m not, you know, calling any shots. But this is what I, to be fair, this is what I would like, this is representative of who I am. And he was of the thought of great, we are just gonna make it a little bit better, we’re just going to make it a little bit better. And we tried some entrances that the world never saw, just different things during the day, we could do this, do that. And he set it up where it was most conducive for Monday Night Raw with the way the staging is on Monday Night Raw to do that and not have to build the Codyvater every day at three o’clock in the afternoon and maybe, maybe save it for let’s save it for a pay-per-view or a WrestleMania, which we did. But he’d have to be to blame for the whoas, because he loves the idea of singing, loves it, and you can hear him calling for that, I want to see people singing, and you can hear it. And that’s just never anything that I thought about. But I can say one of the most important things with the logo I knew wasn’t gonna change as I got the tattoo. [What did Vince to the tattoo?] He, again, laughed but that was one moment where I said, he had mentioned that there’s all kinds of designs we could do and I told him well that one we’re pretty locked in on. But the one thing I was really clear about of all things, the music has to stay the same. And the reason the music had to stay the same was the music wasn’t just at AEW. The music was at Ring of Honor, New Japan, every independent I could possibly go to all over the world. That was the music, including the line that I recorded on my iMac in my living room, gosh knows when, the wrestling has more than one royal family. For sure they were going to take that out, for sure. No way, somehow, someway, we’ll get there and it says sports entertainment. Like we’ll be dubbed over the wrestling but no, they kept it let it be. And there was a version of my song if I can find it, I’ll send it to you. There was a version of my song that was different, that was an option. And I just thought I think the audience would be really mad. Kingdom is I’ll follow you to the end. we can’t discredit that. We have to, we have to have it. So that was probably the most important piece of okay, we’re gonna bring the nightmare brand as it is, the most important piece is that song. I didn’t know it, but I was fighting for it.”
“Oh, I feel like, Oh, man. I feel like because Seth and I’s rivalry is true, and real. I don’t want to tell you how unbelievably, it’s fair, it’s fair to say. Seth is, I can’t even begin to tell you how good Seth Rollins is as a wrestler, psychologist in the ring. And without getting too far, Seth made a decision that day that he made, it was his decision to make, that will forever be something I’m grateful for. Seth and I are not friends. It doesn’t look like we’re heading towards friendship. There has been some flirtation with it. Don’t think it’s going to happen though. All that aside, if I ever write a book one day, a whole chapter will be about how good that guy is and how he’s super valuable to WWE. And he’s still undervalued, in my opinion. And having Monday nights with him and I in a nice, competitive who’s the guy, without ever having to be in the ring with each other. I couldn’t ask for a better sparring partner in that sense. I don’t want to wrestle Seth ever again. But that day, he made a decision that was very important. And if you get him ask him because I still don’t want to say nice things about him.”
“Yeah, I was okay. I was definitely okay with it. I got to the point where at the end of my run with AEW and the beginning of my run with WWE, where I was really big on leaning in, like I’ve been leaning out for so long, I’ve been leaning out. Okay, there’s they’re starting to boo here. And you’re kind of split, Let’s lean into it. Let’s, let’s stir it up. And when I came back, and the story was a real story, that is actually what I talked to Vince and Bruce about in that meeting was, hey, here’s the WWWF title, I have it. Dan Lambert gave it to me. This is the whole reason I wanted to be in the business, this physical piece of [history] this thing right here, this belt, this championship belt. So I was fine with leaning in. Because it feels like it’s now or never, in a sense, it’s now or never that there’s things you have to earn. And when you’re someone’s kid, and you’re second generation, third generation, you have them all at your disposal from the beginning. But there’s a difference from when you use them at the beginning and when you’ve earned them. And I felt like I’d earned them. And I remember Stephanie McMahon said this. She said use everything, use everything you have. And there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to use everything. Oh WrestleMania, the main event, essentially getting elected president is getting that match the final match, like use it all, use everything you have and leave no stone unturned. And she was right.”
“One thing that’s been really very real and in front of your face, and accurate is that the long road sometimes can be very special, but you have to see it. You have to really, if you say it out loud, no, that’s not gonna work, no way. But if you see it, then you start to feel it. And it’s even sweeter if that moment comes, if that day comes, but there was, I’m sure, a myriad of plans. I’m so plugged out of a creative aspect because I mean, from the time I was PayPaling you, my days as a creative person are I’m not interested in them. Even if I had the best idea ever, I would be afraid to pitch it to anybody, just because it just, it just burned me out doing it. And I was too young to be doing it. I should have just been throwing my tights on, boots, on being a wrestler, superstar, however you want to put it. But that was the job. And that’s what the audience wanted and just was a lot of taxing, great lessons though.”
“I think the wrestling took a backseat right away. Because I thought, my bigger mistake. And this wasn’t an AEW mistake, this was a Cody mistake. My biggest mistake was thinking, I’ll stay as good as I am in the ring only wrestling twice, three times, maybe just once a month. Sorry. And the Gen Z crowd out there is about to lose their mind, and I hope they understand what I’m saying, you have to do live events. You cannot learn how to work a live audience unless you perform in front of a live audience. So I was getting worse, as was everybody. Some of the best wrestlers, you name them, in that first year, the crowd was incredibly generous to us because we were new, we were fresh. Some of the stuff isn’t going to hold up just because we weren’t, we weren’t able to do this on the regular and get it down and sharpen our tools. And that’s just, maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s nobody else, but you have to be able to do it. So that’s an area where I think I was suffering from immediately. But you mentioned taking pride in the executive element. So you were there when I was still running those meetings, I really loved it. But from an ego standpoint, from an optics standpoint, that was really cool. But I also really loved leading, and I just maybe wasn’t ready to fully lead at that point. And it didn’t rub everyone the right way, why is he running the production meeting? Why is this and that and then you know, your vision, Kenny’s vision, Matt and Nick’s vision, everyone’s visions, that one thing. But you know, Tony has a vision and this is his money, and then let’s see how that plays out. But that was a good time. I’m glad you had a good experience because when we left there was this whole like disinformation campaign that Wade Keller put out, and I’m not even mad at Wade Keller no heat with Wade. But I could tell what was going on. Again, you didn’t talk to any real source. No, I was an executive, as a member of management. I was happy, wanted to help and took huge pride in us being a professional organisation and, and that shows amongst the roster, the locker room, my kids, the people I didn’t recruit, people I did recruit. Yeah, there was such a fog of misinformation of when I left that. It’s fun to see in the dock itself. You know, that wasn’t the case, it was just time.”
“Brandi, Liberty, Pharaoh.”
