While Cody Rhodes is now in position as WWE's "quarterback," the road to get there was a rather winding one. On a recent edition of "Busted Open Radio," fellow WWE veteran Natalya assessed Rhodes' wrestling journey, which included many years under the WWE banner before taking a sharp turn in 2016.
"He left WWE. He was unhappy. He took a chance on himself. He's been very self-deprecating. When you see his old character, he was trying so hard to break through. This is when we didn't have as much prevalence with social media where we couldn't just build all of our own stuff. He was relying solely on the machine, and he took a chance. He stepped outside and he bet on himself. He went back to his roots. He had never really done the indies before, so he was like, 'I need to do that. I need to be somebody different.' So even for myself, I find a lot of inspiration in it because Cody wasn't afraid to take a chance on himself."
In the last two years of his initial WWE run, Rhodes took on the colorful character of Stardust. Inside, though, Rhodes admittedly felt "very dead," which led him to leave the company in May 2016. Over the next six years, Rhodes reinvented himself into "The American Nightmare" and flourished across ROH, Impact Wrestling, NJPW, and All Elite Wrestling, the latter of which he helped start. In 2022, he returned to WWE with a mission of capturing its world championship something he later fulfilled at WrestleMania 40.
"He's where he's at right now because people feel that authenticity," Natalya said of Rhodes. "People can smell bulls*** a mile away. So with Cody, you feel like he's not perfect, but he's our guy. We'll stand behind him."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
