WWE Raw star and the winner of the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble match Cody Rhodes who is also a former two times WWE Intercontinental Champion recently looked back at his Stardust persona and expressed his frustration while portraying this gimmick.
Cody Rhodes had never been portrayed anything more than a mid card during his first run in WWE. He won some mid card championships during his first WWE run but at the end of his WWE days, he was demoted to a jobber role. In spite of being extremely talented, he could never manage a big push in WWE.
Cody Rhodes Reveals How He Felt While Playing Stardust Character
In 2014 he was given the gimmick of Stardust which was more of a ripoff of the Goldust persona played by his brother Dustin Rhodes. The character was terribly received by the fans, but Cody still did a great job to portray this character. It was said that he himself did not like to portray this character. It was another jobber role that he had to play in WWE.
Last year he made his return to WWE at WrestleMania 38 as the surprise opponent of Seth Rollins. He returned to WWE after 6 years of long absence. This time he is a concrete main event star in WWE. Recently he won the WWE men’s Royal Rumble match and at WrestleMania 39 he would be challenging Roman Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Universal Heavyweight Championship.
Cody Rhodes who is also a former two times WWE Intercontinental Champion recently spoke on After The Bell with Corey Graves where he looked back at his Stardust persona and expressed his frustration while portraying this gimmick. He said;
“Here’s his full story. I’m at the TV hotel. It’s a smaller market. We’re at a Best Western, which was the TV hotel shockingly, and I’m not knocking our Best Westerns out there people, but anyways, I’m at this Best Western and I’m sitting in a rental car with Brandi. It’s freezing because we were in Scranton.
“It’s freezing, freezing. We were outside and the crew bus was right in front of us. It had The Rock and it had the John Cena photo on it from the second Mania. So we’ve already seen this bus for over a year now. This story was encompassing really two years, this story from John versus Rock, the saga, and it was wonderful. But when you’re on the card, not close to that and at my level, I had been chipping away a little bit.
“Brass rings here and there. Brass rings here and there, but I hadn’t broken through by any means. I just got so tired of seeing their dang faces, and I love John. He was my role model in the business. He’s a rental car guy with me until he got a bus. As much as I did, I just was getting so upset and I told her that I can’t keep looking at the same guys. I can’t.”
“I got out of the car and I threw a Yoohoo glass bottle up against beautiful Dwayne Johnson’s face. There might have been somebody sleeping on this crew bus for all I knew. It shattered everywhere and I just stared at him, like I wanted to fight this giant head on the side of this bus. I remember telling her, you marry a wrestler, you’re marrying wrestling. As bad as this is, this is part of it. I gotta get this out, and getting it out for me ultimately would lead to me leaving was the only way I could get it out. It was pent-up. It was pent-up for too long.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription