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Cody Rhodes honored his father, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, in Madison Square Garden last week following SmackDown.
Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes was a recent guest on The Pivot Podcast. When asked about the moment he had in Madison Square Garden on Friday night following SmackDown, where he got to hold up his championship in the same place his father did, Rhodes said that pro wrestling is at its best when it’s real.
“Well, you’ll hear this a lot about pro wrestling and sports entertainment. It’s at its best when it’s real,” Cody Rhodes said. “It’s kind of funny to look at it that way because there’s a suspension of disbelief in what we’re doing. What’s competitive, and what’s performance? But with things like my story, I’m not able to be a character anymore in my life that’s not really who I am.
“Just because they watched me grow up, they’ve seen some of the excursions I’ve taken and some of the things in the paths that I took to then come back to WWE, and truthfully, at eight years old, that was my goal. My goal was to do what I did last night, and I wish he had been alive for it and had that moment. But after his passing, the ball started rolling in a completely different way, and everything just started coming to me in unique and different routes than I thought.
“But I often get emotional on the microphone. There’s a good chunk of wrestling fans who that is not what they are tuning in for. They are not into this dude up there crying all the time. They are not. But that was one of those ones, and I was happy that we did it for the MSG crowd. Of course, we’ll blast it out everywhere, but just specifically to have that moment because the story was I was eight years old. I saw that picture. I wanted to be a pro wrestler.
“So I got to live the picture, and I got to keep it versus him getting all excited and holding it up there and then to have the heat of it being taken away. But he loved the Garden, and the Garden was really good to Dusty, and they didn’t have to be. That’s kind of how I look at all New York crowds. They don’t have to be that way to you.
“Especially like Austin, Texas. This is a country boy, a redneck, and he vibed with them. So when he was alive, all he spoke about, if you could get him going about wrestling, is these three shots he had in Madison Square Garden. Those more than anything, more than Flair, more than anything, more than running his own company. It was just those three shots in the Garden. They changed his career.”
Sorry it took me so long…
When asked prior to Friday when the last time he looked up and said something to his father was, Rhodes spoke about a moment that took place after his match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania XL and revealed what he told his father that night.
“I think I got a little gun shy about fans,” Cody Rhodes admitted. “Fans online were starting to get to the point where, like, ‘Okay, we get it. You’re not the only wrestler with a family. Okay, bro, we get it. Your dad was in it. We get it.’ And then other fans were like, ‘No, we love this because we loved him, and we love this thread.’
“So I’d gotten a little gun shy about. I don’t want my voice to crack; I don’t want there to be this moment just because I got to kind of stand at Mania. I had a brief moment where I got to look up, and I’m very shocked that Michael Cole, or nobody, could pick up what I was saying. And maybe it was just the shot was so quick.
“Shout out to Michael Cole. He’s the best commentator ever. But I looked up, and I said, ‘Sorry it took me so long.’ I think I had planned on saying a bazillion other things, but that’s really how I felt. Because he was a believer, like, truthfully, not just dad, that’s my boy. Like, he really thought, like, ‘No, I think he’s got it. He’s just got to find it.’ And then I did. It was just later than anticipated.”
READ MORE: Cody Rhodes Reveals The Particular WrestleMania 40 Moment That Will ‘Stick With Him Forever’
What do you make of Cody Rhodes’ comments? Are you happy that a Rhodes can finally call themselves WWE Champion? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use these quotes, please credit The Pivot Podcast with a link to this article for the transcription.
