SI.com published an interview with Cody Rhodes this week, discussing his relationship with Northeast Wrestling and a number of other topics:
On the Bullet Club’s “Invasion” of WWE Raw this past fall:
“It made a bigger impact than we imagined it was going to have. I actually got in the car with my wife, Marty, and Hangman right after, and I said, ‘Just so you know, this is going to change a bunch of stuff.’ Marty was like, ‘No, I don’t think anything will come of it,’ but then the amount of stuff that came out of it, which is public with a cease and desist, and there were a lot of entertained fans and pro-WWE fans who were disappointed.
“People should watch it because it’s done in the context of ‘Being The Elite,’ which was almost a parody of what was done very well by Degeneration X in 1998. I definitely don’t have any regrets. It’s unfortunate if it upset some people, which it did, but I don’t have any regrets. We had a permit to film, so this wasn’t as guerrilla style as people think it was. It was about ‘Being The Elite’ more than it was about being against WWE. No regrets.”
On his aspiration to fill a 10K+ seat arena for an independent wrestling show:
“I’m the son of the ‘American Dream.’ Of course I’m a dreamer. My dad had no fear. As a promoter and businessman, he had no fear. I’m 32 and entering the prime of my career, so why would I be afraid? I’ve found these friends and businessmen in the Bucks, and I believe the business cannot continue to go on the path it’s going. It has to continue to change, and there have to be people who are going to change it. I really can’t claim to be any of that until we fill this joint up, but I am not afraid of what we are about to do.”
His thoughts on the Confederate flag:
“It bothers me, but even surprises me when racism pops up. I had a fan tweet to tell me he’d been a fan for a long time, but he had the Confederate flag as his profile picture. I said, ‘Hey man, you’ve got to get rid of that,’ and he did, but what surprised me about that interaction was the amount of apologists who defended what the Confederate flag actually stood for. That always surprises me, that there are still apologists, essentially, for racism.
“We don’t need to be educating people on the Confederate flag, it just needs to be gone. In Germany, there are not swastikas on every corner. That part of their past is history and they’ve progressed. I’m always shocked when I see apologists for racism, which has no place. We’re all in this together. Why would we ever divide?”
The article, which is the 100th column of the Week in Wrestling, also discusses Matt Hardy’s possible return to the “Broken” character and much more. To check it out, visit SI.com.
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