Pads And Panels recently interviewed WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes, who was promoting tonight’s Extreme Rules PPV. Below are some highlights.
Wrestling someone the size of Big Show: “I’ve had to adapt my style completely, which has been a challenge. I knew entering that getting in the ring with someone like the Big Show is going to be different from getting in the ring with somebody like Randy Orton or Kofi Kingston. It has been, honestly, of all the things I’ve done in my career, this match with the Big Show coming up at Extreme Rules and the match we had at WrestleMania have been the biggest challenges for me. Wrestling a giant, in the history of WWE or pro wrestling or sports entertainment, has always been difficult. Hulk Hogan – it was difficult for him. And it’s been difficult for countless other superstars and guys who have been in there. For me, regardless of how I feel about him, because I genuinely hate the Big Show, I have the utmost respect for – he is ridiculously athletic for his size, ridiculously. Khali is a giant who if you get so close to him he’ll swat you down, but there are some weaknesses you can take advantage of. Big Show doesn’t have any weaknesses.”
On not knowing the stip against the Big Show tonight and matches he would like to have: “There are certain matches that are just a boyhood dream. I’d love to do a bull rope match. It’s a match that my father put on the map. I’d love to do a leather strap match. I watched some of my favorite guys growing up in leather strap matches, from Sting to Stone Cold Steve Austin. And I always wanted to do one of those. I’m just hoping it’s something that the odds are not horribly out of my favor or do something the fans are going to chuckle at. I’m hoping it’s not like a Lights Out match, where you wear the mask over your face.”
On The Rock and Brock Lesnar’s recent returns: “Well, I mean, I walked into The Rock’s dressing room at WrestleMania and thanked him for the number of people who were there that night and the number of people who ordered it on pay per view. I have such respect for The Rock. And now with the return of Brock … it’s completely different than The Rock. But for me, it kind of just made me angry and not in a way like, ‘Oh, blast. They get to be on another pay per view.’ More in a way that – I’m out there working. I never take a day off. I never plan on taking a day off. I’m so in love with the wrestling business I couldn’t see myself going away. And these guys have that ability to come back in because they have that presence, they have that following and are just automatically accepted as superstars again. So there’s something to learn and something to be kind of irritated from that whole Attitude Era generation, but I get it from both the good and the bad.”
