The irony of this post is that I’m so not a fan of Cody Rhodes, but this probably like the third or fourth time I’ve made a post about how much I don’t like the guy right now. After the took the L at Wrestlemania this year I called him something like the mega tryhard fantasy football player of wrestling, the way he thinks he’s so wise and knowledgeable about the industry that he believe he sees the entire business on a completely tier as everyone else, and it’s obnoxious as fuck listening to him talk about it.
Well, he’s done it again, because (likely as part of his contractual obligation), there some documentary about him that’s set to release, and he’s on the promotional warpath once again, and I can’t stand the guy so much but I like wrestling so much I’ll probably still watch it, so that I can have some inspiration to write about how much I can’t stand the guy in the future. But in some recent interview, he talks about how he dislikes the catchphrase that he created leading up to his feud with Roman Reigns AND he takes time to shit on the secondary World championship blet that the company introduced because Roman Reigns has such a stranglehold on the company’s top prize.
But I like how at the very root of it, he’s decided he doesn’t like his “finish the story” catchphrase anymore, because the internet got a hold of it and internet-ted it into a meme, and now he’s all regretful for making it in the first place since he’s soft as Charmin, and is too hipster transcendental to understand that there’s actually nothing wrong with having one’s catchphrase meme’d, and that it’s way worse to elicit no response at all from today’s fickle wrestling fans.
Frankly, I’m with him; it is a lame catchphrase, but the difference is that I always thought it was, and didn’t think it was cool at first but then turned on it because the fans ruined it.
And then he has the audacity to take a big dump on the new big Gold blet that the company introduced, that’s currently being defended like a madman by Seth Rollins. He proclaims that winning that title wouldn’t finish his story, because it’s not the championship that his dad, big ‘ol Dusty was incapable of winning, which is tantamount to basically saying that Rollins’ World Heavyweight blet is second-tier and that the only title that’s worthy of his obnoxious attention is big gold W that Roman’s rocking.
I don’t think it would ever happen, because usually the WWE is fairly decent at fulfilling their contractual obligations, but I do think it would be funny if the winds change within the next year, and Creative have no choice but to alter the general Roman Reigns timeline to where it’s not going to be Cody Rhodes who dethrones him at the next Wrestlemania, and he has to “settle” for the World Heavyweight championship instead. But then again, if they were willing to completely eat the rise of Sami Zayn for Cody, that’s probably not going to happen.
Maybe by the time Cody does dethrone Roman, Rollins or whomever will have elevated the new Big Gold to heights that the Big W will be looking up to, and so even if Cody does finally get his story finished, nobody will care, because all eyes will be on the gods work that Rollins and the Big Gold challengers will be conducting at that time.
The point is, whether Cody realizes it or not, he’s truly the IPA-drinking hipster of professional wrestling. He takes so seriously an industry built on being carny, at times raunchy and/or tacky, and at the very core of it was built around big sweaty men in underwear trunks trying to knock each other over and lay on top of one another, that he makes it completely uncool.
Like when the WWE is on the road, and they need performers to go out and do press and help sell the product, Cody Rhodes is absolutely the wrong guy for that job. This is where guys like The Miz, Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch excel at, and lesser-known is Roman Reigns who fulfills a ton of Make-A-Wish Foundation appearances like John Cena once did, and why the Rock is still tapped every now and then to help promote the company. Around the rest of the industry, guys like Big Show, Matt Cardona and MJF are also good spokesmen who do a good job of selling the product without turning people off or boring them away.
But for better or worse, and it’s the turd of WWE management for obligating themselves for so much Cody, he’s going to be doing a bunch of these rando projects here and there until they’re all contractually fulfilled, and we’ll be forced to put up with his hipster, smartest-guy-in-the-room, holier-than-thou attitude. Hopefully they’ll have learned their lesson to not give anyone else a Hulk Hogan-amount of privileges upon a contract signing again, and that Cody will be the last one to be allowed to think he’s so much better than the business that made him, and his family of jobbers.
