Cody Rhodes Names AEW Creative Decision He Believes Was Not Correct
During the latest episode of Out of Character with Ryan Satin, Cody Rhodes joined to talk about his return to WWE.
While answering a question from Wrestling Inc's Managing Editor Nick Hausman during the post-WrestleMania 38 Saturday media scrum the day after his match with Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes highlighted why he never wants a management job in pro wrestling ever again.
The 36-year-old went more in-depth on that answer with Ryan Satin, talking about how he would've been better suited for the role in his mid-40s rather than his 30s.
"I think that role I did well with it, I was very active and I did start a community department and Brandi did bring culture city into the wrestling space, so we were very active," Rhodes said. "We wanted a wrestling company brought to you by wrestlers, for sure, that's a huge part of the mission but maybe it would've been better served for me at age 45 than it did at age 33 or whatever it was.
"I am just now entering the prime of my career so to make political decisions like boxing myself out of winning a World Championship, those decisions in hindsight were not the correct decisions in what I should've been doing. I'm the best wrestler in the world, Ryan, I can tell you that without sounding braggadocios because this is simply all I do.
"I train to do it, I live and breathe it, I have a school here with four rings, I treat this like an athlete in the NFL would treat a game and their team. With that in mind, I needed to go and be that and I wanted to be both and it was just too difficult. That's where I did not have the maturity to balance it, it wasn't a matter of wanting to be one of the boys and not because I'm no longer just one of the boys.
"I love it and wish I could be one but I've been in this position before, I've been on the other side, I've been in these production meetings and things of that nature and part of the technical production. I just think it would have served me a little better later in life when I could look at a show and say I don't want to be in the top spot.
'You need that good competition in your locker room, that good positive competition and if I can't be the best wrestler in the world on television because I'm afraid I'm going to offend colleagues because I am also their boss, that was a situation we were in and I just played it in the middle. There was only so much of playing it in the middle I could do and now I'm not in charge of nothing other than me and being a pro wrestler."
It is worth noting that when Satin mentioned Hausman as the source of the WrestleMania 38 Saturday media scrum question Cody Rhodes went on to comment on a 2019 tweet from Hausman critical of a 2019 Jake Roberts casino vignette. In it, Roberts can be seen dealing cards at a blackjack table while smoking. Hausman's issue was how the vignette made cigarette smoking look "cool" in the lips of a legend like Roberts.
"You know he got mad one time, we're in the same studio where this was shot, he got mad one time that Jake Roberts was smoking in a video where we were pulling cards out or something," Rhodes said. "Jake Roberts is a grown man. Listen, I'm not trying to promote smoking yanno but what are we talking about? It was a casino. Nicky, what kind of casino are you going to man?"
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Out of Character with Ryan Satin with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.