INTERVIEW: Cody Rhodes Talks WrestleMania 42, 'STREET FIGHTER,' & Return To WWE After AEW Departure +More

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Let me get this straight. You're in Italy. Ciao!

Pretended to be the white Italian man's fiance.

Hard to believe.

This is Michael, my nephew.

On John Lowe.

Then you ended up catching feelings for the black Italian cousin brothers.

On April Tap, she came for the pasta and got lost in the sauce.

Please, just tell me that you support me.

No!

No!

Is he fine though?

Come on, baby!

He's not gonna say you love me, baby!

You and me in Tuscany.

Pretty PG-13. Only Peter's April Tap.

Maybe inappropriate for children under 13.

And Doug.

There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual.

Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

What is this, your first date?

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

We're married.

Ah!

Mito a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com.

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

And once last time you've listened to Hot 995.

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Oh no!

Everyday I wake up, wake your ass up, breakfast club.

You're all finished with y'all done.

Morning, everybody. It's DJ, NV, Jess Hilarious.

She'll remain the guy.

We are the breakfast club.

Law and LaRose is here as well.

We got a special guest in the building.

Yes, we do.

Cody Rose, welcome, sir.

Thank you.

I clapped for myself.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys, for having me.

How are you feeling?

I'm good.

From WWE.

Yeah, no.

I brought the WWE title.

I see, I saw it.

The big one.

It's not like the start from the beginning.

Yeah.

What got you into wrestling?

And I know you're going to say your dad.

But besides your dad, what got you into wrestling?

You said, I can do this, and I want to do this.

Well, I mean, there's obviously the osmosis in terms of, like you said, the familial connection

to it.

But really, what got me into it?

Because my dad was much older.

I didn't see him wrestling his prime.

Was going to those shows, the WCW shows, when I was a kid.

And these are markets like Savannah, Georgia.

And you know, Macon, and Jada Nuga, and those crowds.

There's a restaurant named Brad Armstrong.

He used to do a move, an arm drag, basic wrestling move.

But I remember watching it and hearing the reaction.

And there was just this like, deafening pop for this physical, simple, basic stuff.

And that's where I fell in love with it.

It was more almost hearing it than seeing it.

Just because of the interaction, that's the cool thing about pro wrestling is we're very

confident on our audience.

And it's fun to be in New York, because the audience in New York can be tricky.

So yeah, no, that was the moment.

That arm drag is actually the one where I thought I could do this.

Did you know you want to be a professional wrestler?

I mean, so this is funny.

So my dad, he played baseball.

He was one of those classics, like 60s, 70s, where they played every sport.

Somehow, we're great at all of them, you know, all that.

But none of them in my family actually did real folk style, Greco freestyle,

what you would see in the Olympics, that type of wrestling.

So I plugged into that really early in my career, because this is going to sound silly now.

But I didn't want, if anyone ever thought that my dad was, you know, like this phony TV wrestler,

I always wanted to have this little edge like, well, you know, I got this.

And that, that was the thing I loved the most.

But I knew that I wanted to go into pro wrestling, more the storytelling at a very, very young age.

My fear when I was 17, 18, I'm going to pop out and go go for it.

I wasn't big enough, right?

You watched this stuff.

I was going to say that.

I was going to say most wrestlers when you see them there, gigantic.

Yeah.

It looks like they're righted up.

Very big, huge next poise, very strong.

Big next.

But I didn't see that from you boys.

Yeah, no, today I'm lucky.

It's a light heavyweight game.

I'm one of them just pretty to degrees.

Sometimes one of the bigger guys now, which is not the case with my WrestleMania opponent, which is Randy Orden,

which is one of the more old school types.

Yeah.

Six, six, 280 legitimate pounds, giant neck, giant, like, yeah, no, but that was my fear.

And it wasn't until I saw, you know, macho man or any savage.

There's a great example of somebody who wasn't big, but he made himself big.

It's the out, you know, the outfits, the pageantry, but also how he moved in the ring.

He gave himself this larger than life approaching.

Again, this is storytelling.

It can be whatever we want.

So after I got over that fear, I was able to just jump right in.

How difficult was it to make it professional?

What were the steps to actually get into professional wrestling opposed those markers?

Because we hear all the time that they was like, it's just a lucky star one day.

Somebody put you on in the crowd to scream your name.

How difficult was it for you to get it to get to that?

Well, so for me, getting in is not difficult at all.

It's the easiest thing ever.

And I have the absolute respect and love for the guys who are out on the independent scene.

Hustling and hustling and hustling.

Because for me, it was the last name.

And it was out of respect for my dad.

We'll give him a job.

Yeah.

The issue then becomes that's easy getting in the door.

But if you're filling those boots or people think you're filling those boots or you're in that shadow on my brother too.

This is two generations now who have made a big impact in WWE.

That's where it became very, very difficult.

So it's a trade off.

You get in the door, but also you're living up to an incredibly well revered professional wrestler whose contributions still are happening in the industry.

That's where it became very hard.

And I would say I'm a fairly slow learner.

I didn't pop off in a way where I could feel like, hey, they're into this.

These are my people.

I didn't get that until mid-30s.

And now it's the elusive connection that John Cena always taught us about and preached to me because I drove John around for a few years.

It just came a little later for me, but it's still there.

So hanging on.

How did you keep yourself together mentally, motivating yourself when things didn't pop off right away?

Because you have the shadow of your family and you're expecting all this stuff.

I wish I could say I handled things really maturely and diplomatically.

But if I started at WWE, I was 20 years old.

So I was a baby when I started there.

And up until 30, they treated me like I was a baby still.

Even though I'd grown and I'd wrestled Triple H and I'd been in the ring with the undertaker.

I'd taken this.

I'd drove John around.

I'd drove Randy around.

I'd learned.

But I was still treated a little bit as a kid.

So I walked.

I walked and did what we would say is like reverse order.

I went and did independent wrestling.

I went to New Japan pro wrestling.

And my buddy started our own alternative wrestling promotion.

I actually made it to linear cable.

And then it was time to come home.

And then coming home, I got treated very differently.

So I don't know if that's the advice I would give.

Because I think most of the times I say, hey, you stand in there.

You weather the storm.

But this was a case where I just took my ball somewhere else.

But was able to really sharpen my skills and see what's out there and bring it back.

You got to find yourself.

So I can't really hate on them for bad booking or bad.

There was that, sure.

But I hadn't found who I was.

And I think when I came back, I at least had an idea.

I think this is me.

I think you'll like this, you know.

You know, I was going to ask, you know, I was reading an article that said,

WWE's roster is older than ever, right?

This is the oldest we've seen, right?

Seasoned.

It's a season.

Yeah.

And it's almost over 35 in the 40s.

But usually it's a lot younger.

Why do you think that is?

Well, it goes in phases.

So in like the golden 80s, it was, we used to joke, wrestler prime for the man was 35 to 42.

That's in the golden 80s.

And that's because they needed all that experience psychologically.

They worked.

They did this town to town.

The live crowds are everything.

How do you work with a live crowd?

How do you involve them with this?

We're not doing this just for each other.

And we're not doing this just for the camera.

How are they involved?

That now has cycled back.

Because a few years ago, they brought in.

It was what I'd say is like all freshmen on a varsity team.

There's this famous picture of me and CM Punk and Matt Cardona.

And we're all babies.

And we had won the big titles.

But we didn't have a clue really at that point.

We didn't have that experience.

So now I think you're getting back into where you've got.

I know exactly who we're talking about here.

Roman, me, punk, Randy, the main events of WrestleMania.

Right.

I just like to say it's a very experienced crew.

And I do feel I'm in my prime.

I really do.

It could be over tomorrow.

Because I've been doing this in fall and downs since I was 20.

But I feel like I'm there.

And I think W2B Shawn Michaels, particular shout out to Shawn.

What they're doing in NXT is making it so that when it's time,

you know, if I take a bad bump tonight and also and I do feel I feel my age

and the older the seeps in, I can tell you can step in.

He already visited here.

Trick William.

Oh, true.

Yeah.

That's a baby, right?

Trick Williams, Oba, Kit Wilson's out there doing an incredible job.

I'm not giving nothing up.

But I know they're there.

And they're such great young guys that we have on the show right now.

And Shawn got them all ready in NXT.

Ethan Page, Ricky Sains.

They're all going to make their way up here.

It'll cycle back to where it's too young.

So let it be.

Let it be a little older.

Let it be a little older.

I know you said you're not giving nothing up right now.

But you know, with your relationship with John Cena, right?

And watching how he decided to step away and doing other things.

How have you been thinking about like once you do decide like,

all right, I want to do other things and not be in the ring?

Well, he's been really good about basically knowing when.

Because I think he had told me the number he gave me was he thinks he did his retirement three years too late.

Like he was, he was really feeling it, you know,

because I had gotten in the ring with him and met life.

And I, he felt like the best he'd ever been.

But I imagine that was, wasn't able to do it as consistently as he used to do, right?

So he had just given me the idea to be honest with myself when it's time to let WWE know, hey,

I think this next year I'm going to wind down or I'll do less dates or this day.

And then plug into some other ways to tell stories.

Like I just got the opportunity to do the movie Street Fighter.

So excited about that.

Yeah.

It felt very similar to me.

It's just a different way of telling a story.

And I plugged into that.

And I think I'll do more of that in the next five years.

And then maybe that's a transition that just naturally takes place.

I don't feel it yet though.

And I'm not lying to you.

Yeah.

Like I don't, I don't, I don't feel yet.

But I will be honest because again, doing this since 20 and actually watching my dad and brother,

where their, my dad had his legs were black and blue, his beat up.

And that's tough.

I got two little girls, one's four, one's seven months.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah, I don't, I don't want them to be, I don't want to, I won't be able to pick them up.

So if I get the sense we're, we're near that, like I, I'm a, I'm an old man all of a sudden, then, then I'll know.

He said you're not ready yet, but then you put five years on it.

So you've kind of been closely thinking about.

Yeah, I'm giving, I'm giving scoops without realizing I'm giving scoops.

I probably have five years left on paper.

You know, so that, but by then, if I get there, I could say, I know I could keep going.

It's really all a matter of the, the modern WWE schedule isn't what it used to be.

The grind is different.

The grind's still there, but it's not up down bump every night, a town.

It's not, not the same.

So with everything we do today, and like the modern WWE, which is for our healthier, I really don't know what the, what the, what the spot is.

But I bet you it's right around there.

And the wife was a wrestler too.

Yeah.

So how was that when you get an argument?

No, but my wife is just, my, my wife, she trained at NXT, which was the, the performance, you know, where we were developing wrestlers.

And then they, at the time, we're down a ring announcer and they, hey, can you, it's one of those.

Can you do this?

I could.

And she came up and she was the ring announcer.

And that's where we met.

And then she went over to Japan.

I remember poor girl.

She wrestled three matches with her collarbone, totally broken.

I never need to, I never needed to see my wife wrestle or know that she's a wrestler to know.

She's just a very tough woman from Detroit.

She's a very, her, just the way she looks at people when she's in a bad mood.

The brandy has got a different spirit than I have.

You know, people are confrontational and non-confrontational.

I'm a non-confrontational person.

My wife's a confrontational person.

So you run.

So, so I'm, I'm there to, I'm on the side.

I'm Jason.

And let me say she, she's a black woman.

So I know she'd be like, I like the hell up out of here.

You know, or you know.

She, she's a, the thing she's done in her, her career in, in her life where she's said,

basically, we're up.

We're leaving.

Or if I was down, nope, we're not having that.

She just really, I tell people all the time, like, it's all hers.

I don't want to get like super emotional about it.

But like, so everything we have is, oh damn, got me.

It's, it's, it's hers because she, she put a lot over here.

Yeah.

So I could go and make these moves that I made.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Talk about that.

How did that even come about?

You were in the trailer.

Everybody was excited about it.

Can I tell you a crazy story about getting the role?

Of course.

Yes.

I didn't think so.

Roman Reigns has been announced as a Kuma.

And I thought, oh man.

Hang, man.

That's awesome.

Good for him.

But also like, hey man.

Like, I was really happy for him.

Right.

Yeah.

I didn't think they'd be interested in anybody else from the wrestling space.

But I got a call saying, would you come to a legendary and meet the producer and meet

and talk with the producer?

I thought it was just a general meeting.

Really?

Since here, I thought it was a general meeting.

And I thought, best case scenario, they're like, could you consult?

Because I played this game and I loved this game and I had a buddy who played competitively

in Japan.

I'm like, man, I know enough.

That's right.

Maybe we'll have me as a consultant.

If not, great meeting.

Happy to go.

I get there.

And the director is on Zoom.

He's in Australia.

Producers across from me.

I'm just thinking, okay, cool.

We're going to talk Street Fighter, talk 1994, you know?

And then they said, give us a second, the head of the studio wants to come down here.

Okay.

That's cool.

I like meeting people.

You know, this is a no pressure meeting for me.

And she comes in and just like all the aura and swagger, you could imagine.

Or just, and she kind of the whole room is there and she just hits it.

And she's like, hey, you know, I know your schedule is what it is.

But we really like you for the role of Gile.

And we think you'd be incredible.

The dates are going to be what the dates are.

These guys are going to give you the information.

But I'm just happy to meet you.

This is going to be awesome.

She leaves.

Wow.

So I'm like, what are we doing here?

Like, is this real?

And I'm, you know, I'm also like lying through my teeth a little bit because the guys

ask me, he's like, do you think WWE would be okay with that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're going to be fine.

Yeah, champs going to leave for him and they're going to be great.

And thank gosh, you know, WWE's president, Nikon, he knew the power of the stand-in movie.

And he knows he knows, he understands.

So it was an intriple H understood, it was, it was an easy sell.

But after I left, there was a, it was like it was all set up.

There's another wrestler in Hollywood.

I'll just leave him nameless, who called me as I'm leaving.

And he goes, hey, how'd that meeting go?

He knew.

And he was going about to go down.

So I told him for the future, I go, you can tell me.

Like, I'm not going to blow it.

You can tell me.

But it was so much fun.

And that's, that's that Katow Sakurai, the director, incredible story, he's telling so much

fan service towards the game, Noah, Colleen, and Koji, the three leads.

You got your, your Ryu, your Ken, and your Chun Li, they're just, they're the hard soul

of this thing.

Yeah.

And then Orville Pack, who's doing Vega and, you know, Andrew Sholtz.

And it's just like wild collection around them.

They really, they gave us a lot of room to play and have fun and find out, you know,

in my case, like, who's Gael, where does Gael fit in all this?

Yeah.

I'm very, very excited about it.

Yeah.

It's, when I put the, when I put it on, the flat top, the wig, the flat top, yeah.

My costume is, you know, it's not much, it's the, the tank top.

It's the boots, the tattoo, and the, and when I put that on, I felt, if it's a good

performance, because I felt like I was him.

Yeah.

I didn't even like seeing the, the double with it.

I'm like, no, I just me.

Yeah.

And the only one with a stew here, you know, yeah, it's cool though.

The, the movie's, uh, going to be great.

And then I think, uh, in probably the next few weeks, probably some more about the movie

coming out.

So congratulations.

Thank you.

That's the, thank you.

Yeah.

I was going to ask you, you know, with, we had trick up, and he talked about his craziest

time in the ring, right?

Right.

Things went left.

What was your craziest time in the ring?

Something went left.

I mean, went left?

Yeah.

I've had so much stuff go left.

What's the worst one?

Go let, uh, okay, so aren't Anderson, right?

Super important to my career, legend.

He helped develop Brock Lesnar, he helped develop John Cena, Randy Orden.

He became my manager for a brief time, right?

Brief time.

And really it was all about just having that rub up that synergy with the old school.

And since my dad's not with me anymore, I always liked having people in his life near

me, kind of like surrogate uncles and dads.

But he's older, right?

Yeah.

So the arm is up there and he's standing there.

He's got his slacks on and I made him wear this Mike Ditka vest with my logo on it.

He hated that.

He's up on the top of the ramp and there's two guys who are running to fight us.

And it was very clear.

He's going to throw a punch and you block this punch.

I mean, it is like, you just do this.

This is a clear thing.

And then just start punching him and his name, you know, he'll all fight the other guy

and we'll fight to the ring and it'll be exciting.

People love a fight that spills out all over the arena.

Well, I'm standing there and here they come running.

They're coming with full intent.

I look over and he's just gone.

He just fell into the pyrograde.

So he's just falling into the production.

But I don't know how he fell.

So multiple times with this OG, these incidents would happen.

So that one, he fell and I could see the young guys like trying to pull him up.

So you don't get it blown up by the pyro, but also fight you back down the ramp.

Another time in Arthur Ashe stayed in, he's supposed to be waiting on the backside of the ring

and I'm bending right to shoot the guy off towards him.

He's nowhere to be found.

And I just said, screw it.

I shot the guy off anyways.

There's no like no like because he went around the post and he just fell.

I think in the end, I was asking too much.

And he was up the thought like, yeah, I can do it.

Yeah, but a lot of great memories happen with my really brief run with, I miss him

because things like that will go.

So I don't know if those are always great for TV, but they, they always went left with

double A, which is great because he's a master and it's done this game.

He, he, let me get this straight.

You and Italy.

Ciao, pretended to be the white Italian man's fiance.

Hard to believe.

This is Michael, my nephew.

Angel no.

Then you ended up catching feelings for the black Italian cousin brothers, man.

On April tap, she came for the pasta and got lost in the sauce.

Please just tell me that you support me.

No.

Is he fine though?

Come on, baby.

She's not gonna say it.

Pray you love me, baby.

You be in touch today.

Pretty bitchy, dirty.

Only Peter's April tap may be inappropriate for children under 13 and Doug.

There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty

Mutual.

Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

What is this, your first date?

Oh, no.

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

We're married.

Mito a human, him to a bird.

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.

Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com.

Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

I appreciated that time we had together where we could have these for a moment, you know?

Gotcha.

Now WrestleMania 42 is coming up April 18th, yeah.

All right.

So what should the people expect?

Oh my gosh.

Asian Stadium.

Have you been to the Asian Stadium?

No, I haven't.

I've been to Vegas so many times.

Haven't been there.

Go.

They call it the Death Star.

Yeah, because it's just a giant black out in the middle of the desert.

I guess it gives like the doom and gloom of the Death Star from Star Wars, but really

cool, great place to watch anything.

But this year, if you went to last year, it was John Cena versus me Las Vegas.

He had a trip throughout with Seth Roman and punk.

This year, you've got the main event, which is first time punk, CM Punk versus Roman

Rans and the main event on the other night, myself, first Randy Orden, which is almost

20 years of real equity between each other.

And I think wrestling is always best when it's real, if that, I know that sounds silly,

but that's a hard one.

It's very real for me because this is the guy who brought me into the fold to be part

of his faction.

This is a guy who I drove from town to town who I watched him in a WrestleMania main

event against Triple H in 2009.

He was genuinely my mentor in the industry, so to stand across the ring from each other

in the biggest match that we do of the year, knowing like, hey, I need you to see me.

I'm not a kid anymore.

It's back to that.

That makes for great TV and great matches and I think I look forward to that moment.

But WrestleMania in general, you're going to see, because you mentioned the old, the

good thing about it is you get to see the new too.

You get to see the young too.

We're reloading.

It's very clear we're reloading, and that's great.

It puts the fire on me and I like that.

But it's the biggest thing we do.

It's the best thing we do.

If you're ever going to step in, if you don't like wrestling, if you kind of used to like

it, going to a WrestleMania can tell you if this is going to be for you and I think

it's for everybody.

How often do, you know, because of course, WWE writes the scripts.

How often can a wrestler change that script?

It depends.

So, you know, people say like script a lot, which is probably, I think we've called it

that every now and then.

It's almost more of just a format, because now one of the beautiful things about having

these guys who have seasoning is you're not going to write for them.

No one's going to write, unless it's an ad read, you don't have to write it for me.

I just need to know where, where this is supposed to go.

I don't want to go off book in a sense of our book, my own angle, or going to business

for myself.

But the really, the great ones are always a bit off, and you got to have like, I always

say in the pockets.

You've got to have three or four things in the pockets, because if you're in there with

a rock, if you're in there with a John Cena, if you're in there with any of the guys who

we talk about here, you've got to have some stuff in the pockets in case they go left.

It's not always great.

It's a collaboration.

Sure.

But going left is fun.

If the person can keep up and go left with you, another really great scribe for it in

terms of the scripting of it all is the fact that Paul Heyman, Hall Famer, Mr. Heyman

says there, and he's just got the gift.

He's over tongue, just the son of a lawyer, New York City, just the gift.

And he's very good if you can't put the words together.

But for me, I don't think I've had a ridden promo since I came back.

Again, unless it's, hey, a specific ad read, ESPN unlimited plan W to be WrestleMania.

You know what I mean?

Like it's, that's that specific for me, but it's, it, it goes wild each night, which

is great because the audience, I think smart fans, and you get a lot of the smarter fans

in the New York area, they know when it's like, hmm.

This is becoming its own thing, huh?

And I love that because that's the, that's the beauty and the best can keep up with each

other.

So you tell them that's why they come see the seasoned people that he's there, because the

impression is there.

I didn't even get mad at the old thing.

Yeah.

But that is the, that's the deal.

And, and the moment we mentioned, you know, kid, we mentioned trick, the moment you're

in there with one of those guys, and they can take it with you and they can make that

move with you, that's, that's seeing them.

It's all, we're going to be okay.

We're going to be all right here and that, that's trust because you want to, you know,

for me, like currently being champion and how much this means to me, I want to trust

when it's, when it's when I'm gone and watching on TV that it's good, that people are still

coming, you know?

How do you keep your sanity, right?

You, you were talking about your family, your wife and your kids, but you need some family

time as well.

And wrestling fans sometimes are crazy.

I remember the one story.

I can't remember the rest of it.

They used to follow them and they had to pull over and just sign an autograph.

Oh, yeah.

I wasn't that, I was just, I was, I was, I was, I was, how do you deal with that with, with

crazy fans when you're just trying to get some family time?

I remember Triple H said, you know, there really isn't a work life balance with this.

And I think maybe the answer to that is, and this probably won't sound the way I mean

it sound, but I bring them into the work, right?

My daughter's got two trips coming up, she's going to the beach and then she's going to

WrestleMania.

The one she's most excited about, shockingly, is going to WrestleMania.

She's four, but she was there when I picked her up and so five, the first stadium show

I ever made, I meant it.

And now I said hi to her at a legion that last year and she's looking forward to what

are we going to do this year?

I'm going to be in the front row.

What are we doing this year?

I try to bring them around it and with my, my children, I try to explain the importance

of the fan.

It also means every type of fan.

So there's the diehard fans who you know you've touched and you're lucky as all can be

to have.

There's also the collectors.

And there's some who maybe they're the haters, the critics, they're all really, really

important.

And to me, it's always a yes.

It's always, you know, I can't do it while I'm holding a baby, no, but it's always a

yes.

Now here's where there's a little bit of the balance, so I'm all about it.

The fans are the most important thing we have and I try to explain it to the children

that they provide this, this house, that they're part of that, right?

My wife though is the other side of that.

You know what I'm saying?

And I think sometimes she just provides a look that helps us a little bit of a deflection,

a little bit in on my heart.

That's good.

I got her.

What have you learned about showing up for your wife, Brandy, right?

While doing and sustaining all of that, I remember her talking about like postpartum depression

at one point in, you know, she's at a very successful career.

Like she's first black woman in the ring announcer of WrestleMania 2015, the first black

woman executive in North America wrestling operations, right?

And then she becomes a mom and she's very open about how things change for her.

How do you step out of your character and just as a husband support her in those types

of situations?

I think what I've tried to do is everything is, is there's not a, I don't want there

to be value weight on what I do that's not equal to what she does.

So this is the biggest season of my life, WrestleMania, everything is, I sleep, training,

diet, everything.

This is it.

But in the same band, she's doing a huge porch sale at her kid's store, which is in

a Roswell called Pinkerton's, they're the same.

I need like, and I don't know if she believes me when I tell her that.

So the only way I can do that is just show it that there is no like, there's no weight

to this.

There's no bread winner in our house or anything like that because we did this together.

So that's been the thing, I don't, I don't know if it's always, always translates, but

that's what I always try to do to make it very clear that what you do is just as important

as what I do and support, support those.

But the big thing too, and we learn this from wrestling is that's yours, right?

Like the cool, this, this is great.

Like let me, this is my thing, but when I came to WWE, a lot of people thought Brandy

would come with and the big part of this was, let's do, let's do our own things.

Let's do our own things.

Sometimes when you're a couple and you beat each other over the head with it, that's

they, you know, like, no, for a marriage, no, and it's, and it's also, you know, if you're

a fan, like, I don't know how I'm a baby face in the first place, bleach blonde hair,

wear suits, the American flag on the side of my neck, I don't know why the, why I haven't

gone the other way, why I'm not a vicious heel.

But I can tell you that when you add in this beautiful woman to the, that, less likely

that the grown men coming to those shows want to cheer for you now, you know what I mean?

Like it's really not the, you know, so we, we've gone, put spotlights in our own places

and separated that way, which has been really good.

But it's daily, it's daily, you know, you gotta, you gotta be there.

Yeah.

When you came back into the WWE, you said that she, a decision that she made was the only

reason why you were even able to come back.

Yeah.

Like, what was that?

Like, what happened?

Trying to think what I meant, or if I meant something, I shouldn't say, uh, you said

it's not a story.

Yeah, everyone's going to know, but I, I wouldn't have been able to, been able to come

back if she didn't make a very selfless decision that changed my life.

Yeah.

So I think what I, our departure from when we left the company we were with and helped

create and that was AEW, uh, it, it came down to her, um, her deciding to, to not talk

about, right, that departure to like, let's, we're not going to talk about it.

We're moving on.

Did bad stuff happen?

Good stuff happened to, right?

I'm not going to talk about it.

And one of the sad things about not talking about why we left in the departure, one of

the difficult thing was narratives gets created.

Most of stories get told, podcasts happen, fans literally think they know what happened

when no one's been even close.

And what I would say is the selfless part, she, she lives with that.

She owns that that she respects not just here, but the place we left enough to, I'm not

going to talk about that.

And that made it so that they're good.

They're out of here.

Gotcha.

The Scott for that, that was very, very helpful for us.

And again, good stuff happened there too, but that's what I mean by selfless because

she lives with that.

And one of the things about that is wrestling fans, I mentioned they created a narrative.

They think they know, I had to remind her, I'm like, hey, it's not all the fans.

And WrestleMania 40 was the prime example of that.

I said, you're going to come out with me at WrestleMania 40.

And I was so happy because the fans reacted like big pop, big excitement.

And I just needed to like kind of nudge her like see, like they're the real ones.

They get it.

And like they, they, they, they, they, they ain't mad at you.

And that was very important that she felt it because a lot of, a lot of wrestlers take

it step off.

They go where they do something or they screw up, make a mistake, whatever they come back

and the, the fans like, they always cradle you back in.

They're really special.

Even the night like I'm not, I probably go out on the garden and get boot out of the

arena.

Wow.

That's okay.

That's okay.

Because I, I've been cheered to the heavens in that, in that place before too.

So that, if that's what you need tonight, I'm here for it.

What's your relationship with your brother?

I love my brother.

Yeah.

I love my brother.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think he, you know, he's 16 years older than me.

So we didn't get as much brother time as we should have when I was growing up.

But he does this thing now which blows my mind because it was never a thing in our family

was he shows his dog.

He's got his dog.

So out of the road to a performance in square garden, my dad, me, my wife, my brother,

and his dog beast.

And his dog, his dog was at, was a, was at the Kennel Club, like it went from Javits to

the garden, made it, one group, made it to the final round of beast.

He has this giant mastiff, but we didn't do this growing up.

So I don't know where it came from.

So he's got these three dogs.

He took it to England the other day.

So it's just funny because this is Dustin.

This is like Hillbilly brother from Austin, Texas, who's got this pristine, perfect dog

show dog.

And that's his thing right now.

He's still wrestling.

The last match I saw him, he was, he's still moving at an incredible rate.

Really?

I always tell people, I, I know Hall of Fame is tricky, you know, because there's a lot of

Hall of Famers who are deserving of it, but we've only put so many in each year.

I think that's hopefully a step for him in the future.

I think he definitely deserves it for more reasons than just what he put in in the ring.

He's really done a great job of surviving that era of, you know, where there's a lot

more crazy, a lot, a lot more rock star.

And like to become such a good father, he's a grandfather now, showing dogs.

I love my brother.

He was one of my favorite wrestlers, if not my favorite wrestler, I just because my

brother don't tell.

I always say, oh Shawn Michaels is my favorite wrestler, but my brother's up there too.

Who is on your Mount Rushmore of wrestlers in your Mount Rushmore wrestling family?

So with the wrestlers first.

Oh man.

So yeah, usually lie about this question, why?

Because we get asked it a lot, and I'm waiting for some fan to go, hey, he said, he,

he said that guy last week.

The reason is because there's so many, yeah.

And fans get really like sports key to, there's like these aggregate sites, they're going

to pick this up and it's the only piece of this interview.

So we had this awesome chat, and they're going to go, Cody says, Terry Funk on Mount

Rushmore.

I'm like 80 people are going to get mad or get excited.

So families, you're saying families, Mount Rushmore family, big man's, hearts probably,

man's hearts.

I'd put the roads, I put the roads because we really finished the loop, right?

It's all you like, there's not as much an imbalance.

He did all that stuff.

I'm trying to catch up, you know what I mean, roads, now this is where it gets tricky.

Okay.

So you got the hearts, you got the roads, you got the man's, you could put the Guerrero's

for sure.

My gosh, and you could put the Mysterios now, right out there, Dom out there.

This is why these, they need more heads on their mound dog.

Okay.

But Guerrero's, I'm trying to pick though between Guerrero's and Mysterios and there's other

families too.

Well then, what am I saying though?

I'm ignoring a giant massive family here because it's so massive, you almost forget.

The entire high chief family, that's Peter Maivia, that's the rock, that's Roman Reigns,

that's the Usos, that's Jacob Fattu, that's Naya, that's Trinity, they run it.

They run it.

They run it.

That's the biggest one.

So I'm going to go, I'm going to go, the bloodline we'll just call them, which is

high chief Peter and Roman and all that, I'll go Rhodes and I'll go Hearts.

Okay.

Last question for me.

We see a lot of times, wrestlers put their views into the things that they say, like

we see it with whole code and when they put their political views, what are your thoughts

on wrestlers talking about their political views, how they feel and all that, what is your

thoughts on that?

I mean, I would probably classify it as a terrible idea.

But may I say this?

Of course.

And there's an issue that needs attention, that the whole world is going, what are we doing

here?

Somebody say something.

There's a lot of times, if you're about to go out there with a hot mic, you feel like

I should touch this.

I should.

And maybe you should, right?

Maybe you should because I hear people say, like, well, why would you want half your audience?

I don't really think that way.

Yeah.

I think I'm reactionary and I think how I think in that moment, maybe it's helpful to

think more strategic and more, help political.

I think there's certain things that are views and politics and they probably aren't great

to bring into the narrative because you're telling a story on TV.

Maybe you don't need that.

But then I think there are things that aren't political, that we should stop acting like,

why is this a big deal?

Like pride month is, that's not a political thing.

Yeah.

That's, that's love.

Yeah.

American nightmare school with like, what are we doing here guys?

You know, like, those things, I think you can move into, that's, we're growing up with

all that.

We're, we're, we're learning.

But I would say from my experience, ever having dropped anything in there that was probably

a, that it's not a great, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say, I'd say if anything, it becomes

a distraction.

Like if I'm trying to sell this ladder match with you and I, and then I went on something

about the modern political climate, that is what they're going to remember from that

promo versus that we're trying to climb that ladder and bring down the title.

You know, so, yeah, you still think about run if it's in it?

I, Georgia's funny, right?

Because Georgia, there's Georgia and there's Atlanta, right?

And I'm more in the Atlanta orbit, North, like the metro area in terms of like, the

energy that is Georgia, because like, Valdosta is very different from North Georgia.

Because the governor spot in Georgia has always very much intrigued me.

But I will be very honest in this moment.

I am incredibly unqualified to do so.

If I did anything like that, I would do the best to bring the people around me who are

qualified and to help help, if you got a modicum of fame and I can help somebody and that

can help put it, put it somewhere we need to go, then I'm all for it.

I love, I love that seat.

I love that spot, especially if I'm surrounded by the right people and a big thing if I had

to get into like a political platform is you got to have a green initiative with all

the crazy stuff we still talk about, like from our childhood, that shouldn't be an issue

anymore.

Why are we not talking green initiative?

We are burning this thing as we go.

And that's a big one for me.

If I had to start with anything, I'd start there.

Maybe the one area I might be qualified, but I don't know who knows, I still, this is,

this is what I do now.

So, yeah.

That is a coolest wedding ring, like I've never seen, it looks like a, uh,

like the, the chain, like a chain.

Yeah.

Is your wife have the same type of one?

No, no.

She didn't like the one I got her.

She didn't like it and just when got a giant, I, you know, like the four C's of the diamonds,

I thought I get like a very nice qualify under all the four C's, like, I didn't realize

she just wanted like a, just a really big rock.

Yeah.

So, she, she after a few years of making it clear, I had made the wrong call when I said

just get it.

Yeah.

Get your thing and she went and got a giant rock and she picked that out for you.

No, this one I picked out, I, I needed a little retail therapy.

Yeah.

Before WrestleMania 40 and Philly, I had gotten taken out of the match.

So, I had won the right to main event, WrestleMania and then because of some other factors,

I wasn't in the match anymore.

So, I went on a shopping spree in the Bellagio and this was at the Tiffany's there and it

started as type ends and it turned into, I cleaned up and then I got the match.

I wanted it in the first place.

So, I had it.

I was like, well, at least that was calm for a few hours, yeah.

So.

Well, WrestleMania 42 takes place Saturday, April 18th and Saturday, April 19th in Vegas.

If you haven't got your tickets, get your tickets.

You can stream it live, ESPN, unlimited plan.

The first hour of night one and night two will broadcast on ESPN 2 and ESPN and we appreciate

you for joining us, man.

Thank you guys for having me.

That's so fun.

Thank you.

I wish all of the men was here.

So, you can slap him with the bell.

I know.

Just slap him.

Just one good time.

I don't like him too much.

Just smack him with the ring.

He's the heel of the room.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

You need that though.

You need that.

Only three days a week.

Not all five.

Not all five.

Ladies and gentlemen, Cody Rhodes.

It's the Breakfast Club.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All of you.

Everyday I wake up.

Make your ass up.

The Breakfast Club.

You're all finished with y'all.

Done.

And, Doug.

There's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty

Mutual.

And, if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

Hey, everyone.

Check out this guy and his bird.

What is this?

Your first date?

Oh, no.

We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together.

We're married.

Mito a human.

Him to a bird.

Yeah.

The bird looks out of your leg anyways.

Only pay for what you need at Liberty Mutual.com.

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