Cody Rhodes protects the business.
Cody Rhodes’ quest to finish the story famously hit a roadblock when he lost to Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39.
Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Cody Rhodes was asked to comment on when he found out that he was losing to Reigns.
“It’s a great question, and I’m of the thought that, there’s a movie, ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.’ You ever seen it? There’s a quote in there that I keep getting wrong,” Cody Rhodes said. “When the fact becomes a legend, print the legend. So for the purpose of this answer and that question, what I’ll tell you is I found out in the ring in the moment that he hit me with the Spear and pinned me, one, two, three.
Cody Rhodes On His Loss
Cody Rhodes was also asked to describe what was going through his head after he lost to Reigns, and he recalled the long walk to the back.
“I mean I joke that it was a long walk,” Cody Rhodes said. “The reason I say that is because it was long in duration but also the feeling of walking by a lot of the building workers saying, ‘Great job. Get him next time.’ Just kind of these random things as I’m passing people by. I walked with Brandi, and we didn’t have any words between each other. But when I got to my bus, I had a nice moment with DDP because he hated it.
“But also, we just main-evented a WrestleMania, but also we’re not the type to be happy with just main-eventing a WrestleMania. I get it. If you asked me when I was doing Stardust, I’d give my left finger to main-event WrestleMania. But once I was in there, I realized, I don’t just want to main-event a WrestleMania. I want to win in the main event of WrestleMania. So it was an incredibly long, just blue, somber, melancholy. But I wanted to quickly move out of it.”
Cody Rhodes Got Advice From John Cena
Cody Rhodes then repeated his past comments that he got some key advice from John Cena, who helped him focus on becoming a champion without the belt.
“I spoke to John Cena about this thing, this exact thing, and that’s was probably the best advice,” Cody Rhodes said. “Not just because of the advice itself, but because it was someone who had the experience, someone who had been to the top. I didn’t…it would have been a great call to make to my dad. Didn’t have that choice. So I had John to kind of present me with the challenge.
“The challenge he presented me with was, just be the champion without the belt, and here’s your barometers. Look at your merch, look at your ticket sales with the last live event versus the time you were there this time. Look at everything, and that will keep you honest. That will let you know, are you the champion without the belt? That was a good challenge he presented with me. Hopefully, after WrestleMania 40, I…it’s silly, I guess, I would love to be the champion with the belt.”
Rhodes will challenge Reigns for the gold again at WWE WrestleMania 40.
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