Cody Rhodes recently spoke with Busted Open about Survivor Series and more. Check out the highlights:
On Rey Mysterio joining his Survivor Series team: “Rey has a lot left to give. I got the opportunity to see him at the WWE Performance Center and to see him take him time to get back to work and that was the best thing that he can do. He’s had eight knee surgeries, I think. To take his time and properly rehab and properly facilitate in the fashion that he did. He’s one hundred percent and I’ve known Rey for a long time and I can confidently tell you in this situation, he is one hundred percent and if anybody knows anything about pro wrestling and sports entertainment, if they ever saw Rey Mysterio go, it’s some of the most exciting matches that you will ever see. He is just as good as he was when I saw him wrestle Dean Malenko at Halloween Havoc as he will be at Survivor Series.”
On Goldust’s comeback: “Dustin and I, were not as close as people think but we are real brothers and I know a lot about his personal life and he is such a fitness fanatic and he is living a healthy lifestyle. He has made that choice for three or four years now and I knew it would translate into his return to the ring in some fashion but I didn’t know how well it would translate. It’s full on competitive now between him and I and that’s what makes a great team. I don’t want to be any step behind my older brother and he doesn’t want to be any step behind his younger brother so it makes for a great dynamic. I’m shocked every time I see him in the ring, every time, because he is able to pull out something new and he able to perform at the level he was performing when he started out in the business.”
On his promo from the night he was fired: “I think sometimes when people don’t expect you to say certain things, when they consider certain things taboo and when you step on someone’s toes with what you said but there is truth behind it. I think it makes for compelling television and I know nothing was given to me which is rare in a television show where you able to be free and tell our audience how you feel. I don’t know if anything has necessarily changed. I know for me having been here with WWE since I was twenty years old, I couldn’t even purchase alcohol when I started with WWE. I don’t have any fear with anything within the company anymore because there’s no point to have any fear. It makes for a very feel individual. I show up when I’m supposed to and I know that I have the ability to have a match with anybody on that roster and that’s what I’m going to try to do and it’s one of Vince’s things. You will get nowhere unless you step on a lot of toes and I’ve consistently been trying to do that. For me, that change wasn’t necessarily when that promo happened, I say that change happened when I started that rivalry with Rey Mysterio almost three years ago and it’s been the same ever since. I grew up very quickly here.”
On connecting with the crowd: “I think some fans who are critics and some of our insider people who are too inside; they look at it from that perspective: ‘That he’s second generation, it was easy for him to get there and it easy to steal the elements from his father and brother’, they think that’s easy. For me, the best advice that I ever got was to be the exact opposite of everybody. Don’t have bleach blond hair, don’t jab, don’t do the bionic elbow, and don’t do any of that because it’s just too easy. For me, I’m a student of the game but I’m also a student of, if anything, not my dad or not my brother but of the guys that competed with him. I would say if I had to make a Survivor Series fantasy team, it would be the Ric Flair’s and the Kevin Sullivan’s because that’s where I learned the most from. I don’t do any service to anybody who turns into our product to come out to my dad’s music, which I hated by the way, and to do something that he did. I have to be who I am, Goldust needs to be who he is and at the end of the day when the fans say: ‘Hey, who is one of the great families in our industry?’ Hopefully they will say us because of just that. We gave each audience, each generation and each age group something different.”
