At WWE WrestleMania 40 (Night Two), Mama Rhodes saw her son finish the story, as Cody Rhodes beat Roman Reigns to win the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
The year prior, she saw her son lose at WrestleMania 39. At the post-WrestleMania 40 media scrum, Rhodes talked about what his mother said to him after the 2023 event. He said,
“One thing about my mom is, my mom does not want to be on TV. She doesn’t want to be Mama Rhodes. She’s usually asleep during the show. She doesn’t know this, but I’ll never forget, I was really worried when I didn’t win at WrestleMania 39, the journey that I fought, ‘How can I get back to WrestleMania 40 and do it all again?’ I remember saying to her, ‘I just want to be quarterback.’ She didn’t mean it in any negative way, but how she slid right in as I said that and said, ‘Just one time.’ When she said that, I realized that I was out of time. It was now or never. WrestleMania 39, it felt this was it, this was the moment, this is the most obvious thing ever. No. What they asked me, what the challenge was, what the task was — I just heard The Miz, who I’ve known my whole career tell me that was an incredible amount of pressure. I’m not going to pat myself on the back here, but I feel the gauntlet was laid down and I was able to get through to the other side. Ultimately, the biggest challenge in front of me was the biggest movie star in the world, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Mr. Heyman, now a Hall of Famer, and of course, the Tribal Chief, a man on the Mount Rushmore of pro wrestling, sports entertainment, Roman Reigns. I’m lost in all of this, if that makes any sense, I am. If I learned anything from my dad, if it’s a good night, you don’t want it to end.”
