Cody Rhodes failed to capture the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship from Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39 (Night Two) despite being the odds-on favorite to win the main event match.
On the latest episode of the After The Bell podcast, Corey Graves shared his perspective on Rhodes’ shocking loss to Reigns at WrestleMania 39.
Graves suggests that the sympathetic nature of Cody’s defeat builds the emotional connection between him and the WWE Universe, which is a huge win in terms of storytelling. Provoking a feeling in the audience is one of the quintessential aspects of successful storytelling in professional wrestling and WWE made the right decision by having Cody lose to Reigns at WrestleMania.
You can check out some highlights and listen to the full episode below.
On how similar stories have been successful in the past: “Look back to a person that was [name] dropped multiple times during the lead-up to Roman and Cody, that being ‘The American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes. Dusty became the common man because Dusty constantly came up short, usually due to no fault of his own. But people connected with that, people understand that. People live vicariously through WWE superstars, and there were a million people around the world in Cody’s boots with him.”
On the success of the Rhodes/Reigns story so far: “Whatever you take away from it, that’s fine. You’re not wrong. If you made a YouTube video cussing and swearing about how you’re done, you don’t like WWE anymore, good. Good, because you feel that emotion…. Just wait because it’s going to get better.”
