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Cody Rhodes On Those Who Thought He Wouldn’t Last In The Indies, Discusses WWE Creative, Wrestling In Japan – More

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The current Ring Of Honor World Champion Cody Rhodes, recently sat down with Metro & discussed a plethora of topics ranging from Cody not being allowed creative freedom in WWE to him coming to the indies and becoming a star. Rhodes touched on wrestling Kazuchika Okada & much more.

Here are the highlights:

What’s It Been Like For Cody Being ROH World Champion:

“It feels good, it’s a cliche but it’s good to be the champ. I wanted to be a world champion of some sorts since I got into the industry when I was 15-years-old and I was able to do that.,I’m looking at the belt on the top of the bag across from me and it still hasn’t fully hit me. There are multiple stages to all of this, but I know that every time I walk into a gym or go to a new locker room since I won the title, I’ve felt like the world champion. My understanding of the world title and what it means is consistency.”

His Success On The Indies:

“I had seen a lot of people who had been released from WWE, or asked for their release and gone out into the wild unknown. There’s more cases of it being unsuccessful than successful. I knew I was unhappy in my heart at the end in WWE and I had time to plan even though I knew it was going to be hard. That time to plan is what made the difference and I invested in myself as a talent from the ground-up. I got a concept artist to draw up some new gear and I got a publicist and a manager, but all this kind of stuff is nonsense unless you activate it, so everything I’ve had I’ve activated.”

“When I wasn’t wrestling, I got back into school a little bit. In Dallas there was VIP Wrestling and in Atlanta, AR Fox has a great school, so it’s good to get back in there and continue to learn. As a team, we have all been about what happens the next day, yes it’s absolutely the coolest thing ever to win the world title, but now tell me what we’re doing tomorrow.”

Not Having Enough Creative Freedom With His Character In WWE:

“I honestly think the more time I spend away from WWE, the less it was WWE’s fault and the more it was my inability to go with my guts. There would have been a big difference if I had done that and that would have meant saying no to a writer or correcting a few folks and maybe ruffling some feathers and stepping on some toes, but I can’t think of anything more important for a wrestler than to go with his gut.”

“Specifically in backstage segments and in interviews, no matter what, if you’re not feeling it, you can’t say it. There was only a couple of incidents in my WWE career where what I said on the microphone was all me and they were my most successful.
It’s not a knock on WWE creative at all, they’re there to guide you and give you the bullet points of where it may be going, but they can’t script it, you can’t script wrestling.”

Would He Get In Trouble If He Were To Ever Complain About WWE’s Creative:

“I don’t recall at any point ever being punished for anything like that, but I do recall that when I did speak up for myself from time to time it didn’t make a difference. Essentially the answer I would get was thanks but no thanks. I think I developed a reputation as a complainer and that’s hard to escape. You don’t want to be a complainer, you want to be someone who says ‘I don’t like this but here’s my alternative.’ I don’t know, maybe because I’m Dusty’s kid and I have a creative mindset that he gifted me a little of, almost every idea I ever got, I thought I wanted to do something different.”

“I’ve told a couple of people this but I feel that I wish I’d played dumb a little bit more and just have fun and do what they say. My relationship with the creative team might have been better, because essentially if you’re telling them every week you want to do something else instead, you’re telling them they’re not good at their jobs, nobody wants to hear that.”

What Is It Like Wrestling For NJPW:

“I grew up really strongly aware of New Japan because my dad had an unflinching respect for Japanese culture. He told me all about Inoki when I met him at Slamboree and I had the respect ingrained in me. Upon my first meetings with NJPW and Tiger Hattori, it was like we were very much of the same mindset. There was a lot of respect, but it wasn’t just that they were offering me dates to work, but challenges to present as well. I was told if I met those challenges it would be good for everybody. I like that, I don’t want to coast off the fact I was a WWE guy in the slightest. There have been plenty of WWE guys who did a few shows for New Japan and got the hell out. The challenges will keep coming and I’ve tried to make myself as available for NJPW as much as possible in 2018 because I think we have a future together.”

His Match With Okada At The G1 Special:

“That was a beautiful and fun thing to walk out and instantly know what they were into and what they were not. They treated Okada like he was Steve Austin and that was great, if a little shocking. I was in my own country, but as soon as I walked in between the bogus Richard Nixon and Barack Obama and heard the entire crowd booing, I knew I was in for an interesting night. As soon as I got in the ring, I saw a guy in an American Nightmare shirt throwing me double birds, then I didn’t know what to do. I was a little rattled at first, but it was really special.”

 

 

 

 

 

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