Current TNA star Cody Rhodes spoke with Dan “The Mouth” Lovranski of The Fight Network about various topics. Here are the highlights.
Getting to showcase talents outside WWE, limitations of Stardust character:
Cody: “Yeah, I think one of the things that was so disappointing for me at the end of the time in WWE was simply that people had forgot what I was doing prior to Stardust because yeah, Stardust had its purpose and such but I was doing all this wonderful stuff as Cody Rhodes, specifically on the Smackdown brand years before and even when I tagged with Dustin when it started to kind of dwindle down. Even then I was able to showcase and I was able to put out so when wrestling is a really fickle animal, it’s very much what have you done for me lately and because of the position I was in, I hadn’t done much lately. So, for people to forget for new audience members, for kids who were coming to WWE to not know, that sucked. That just sucked. The hardcore fans, they’re there for you and they remember but man, if you’re a kid, to not know who Cody is but to know who Stardust is was one of those moments where I was like okay, we need to change the course of this ship, we need to change the direction. There are times where I really enjoyed doing Stardust but more particularly for the reason I’m telling you than if Stardust was going to re-write my history, then that was definitely not my plan and that’s why it’s cool to go on my own terms and try to fix a little bit of it. “Whenever you get to paint your face or wear a mask or be a bit more of a colorful entity on television, that’s fun. Yeah, all the stuff that leads up to it might be stressful, all that backlog I just gave you about my mental state, that can be stressful. However, when you’re out there that’s performance, that’s not stressful, that’s your moment in the sun. So, as Stardust, as Cody, as whomever, whenever you’re in the ring it’s still always great, whenever your music hits and from bell to bell, it really still and should always be for any wrestler still great. There’s plenty of times I enjoyed Stardust.”
Returning to the WWE eventually:
Cody: “I don’t know, I don’t think the door to WWE ever closes. I’m always been told that the revolving door – you know, it’s a tricky question because there were a lot of genuinely large issues for me personally that it would be hypocritical for me to just go back, they would need to be fixed. We don’t have to get into all of those but that’s something I’ve wrestled with, whenever somebody, anybody says would you ever go back – the fans dictate what we do to begin with so if the fans wanted me back, that’s not something I would not consider but I made all my decisions and they were really tough decisions for the reasons given so the last thing you want to do is be a huge hypocrite and show back up unless there was a damn good reason. With that said, there’s plenty of good reasons. They do a really good job of honouring my father and it is strange, kind of like how we began the conversation, it is strange to be on the outside of that. It’s not just strange for me, it’s strange for them. Believe me, there’s various texts back and forth about it, that’s why there’s no reason to say anything negative right now about my name because this month, I look at it like this is about my dad, the tag tournament and these youngsters, they’re not youngsters, some of them might be older than me. These NXT talent, these stars going for the Dusty Classic and that’s what needs to take the focus. That’s kind of why I have been hush-hush about the name.”
