When Cody Rhodes was announced to be jumping ship from AEW – the company he helped found – to WWE earlier this year, it set the wrestling world on fire.
As soon as his music hit at WrestleMania 38, fans welcomed him back with open arms and couldn’t wait to see what he was going to do in the company going forward.
He had three great matches with Seth Rollins, set clear goals for himself while explaining his motivations, and even managed to get Dave Meltzer to give five stars to a main roster match for the first time in over a decade.
But then Rhodes, ever the showman, swerved us all by partly exploding and being written off TV for several months.
But it’s almost time. Can you hear it in the distance? The faint sound of Downstait and the smell of too much pyro. Cody Rhodes is coming back, and you’d better strap yourself in.
But how will Rhodes be booked when he does make his return? We can’t know for sure, but here are seven things Triple H could do with the American Nightmare.
7. Cody Rhodes Takes On The Bloodline
This is probably the most obvious option, or at least the most-fantasy booked, so it’s worth getting these vegetables out of the way first so we can get to dessert later on.
Here’s the thing – Cody vs the Bloodline makes perfect sense right now for a couple of reasons, the most overwhelming of which is this: he told us he wants the WWE Championship, and Roman is currently using the WWE Championship to hold up his perfectly-tailored pants.
Cody and Roman never really got the chance to interact, but if you bring Rhodes back at say, the Rumble, you have a good stretch of time to build something between the two.
The wrestlers who are involved in the current iteration of the story kind of lend themselves to this too, as Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens are good friends with Rhodes, and would make sense to provide some back up to Cody as he takes on the biggest dog in wrestling.
Not to mention it would solve the issue of Zayn’s involvement in the feud, as he could team up with Owens to destabilize the rest of the Bloodline by taking the Usos’ belts right before the Tribal Chief is set to defend his own.
Does Cody win this feud? I guess it doesn’t really matter, as it would help establish him as one of WWE’s top guys, which would free him up to take on some more interesting, less obvious storylines throughout the rest of 2023.
6. Cody Rhodes: WWE United States Champion
There’s an image I haven’t been able to get out of my head since Cody Rhodes came back to WWE.
It’s of him, in his full Homelander get up, delivering a speech about how great these United States of America truly are, while wearing a custom US Championship belt in the shape of his neck tattoo.
It’s the only thing I see when I close my eyes at night. It consumes me. I need to see this belt, I need to see Cody’s run with it, and then I need to buy a replica from WWE.com so I can be buried with it.
That one, very specific fixation aside, Cody would be a great person to hold a belt that has a bit of a reputation of being a workhorse championship.
An open invitational where he takes on any and all comers in a series of banger matches could not only help establish him as a solid hand in the eyes of fans, but massively get over his competitors too.
Cody was built to defend that belt against the likes of Mustafa Ali, Chad Gable, Ricochet, and all your favorite underutilized IWC darlings, before eventually dropping it just in time for a run at big boy gold on the road to WrestleMania 40.
I also shouldn’t need to point this out, but Cody has spent the past few years being accused of having aspirations of becoming a John Cena-style face, and a run like this would be really reminiscent of Cena’s US Open Invitational, so… you know. Cinematic parallels.
Look, my point is that wrestling fans like being shown things that remind them of other things – it was WWE’s business model for a good chunk of the 2010 – and this is exactly the king of *wink wink meta BS* Rhodes excels at.
5. Mr Cody In The Bank
There was a point earlier this year when it was all but a foregone conclusion that Cody would win the Royal Rumble and go on to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39.
Unfortunately, between Rhodes’ injury and absence, the potential return of the Rock, and Sami Zayn’s unexpected (but not unwelcome) ascent in recent months, the former Stardust isn’t necessarily at the top of anybody’s dance cards right now.
Despite his popularity earlier this year, WWE may find itself needing a little extra time to heat Cody back up in the eyes of fans.
So why not forgo the Rumble, and instead bring Cody back just in time to win next year’s Money in the Bank briefcase?
It’s actually kind of perfect, because not only does it give Cody a great one-time win, but it also gives him a full year to play around with people’s expectations by teasing the occasional cash in here and there.
Sure, the briefcase is a bit of a heel prop, but Cody’s always been good at walking that line between face and villain anyway (even if he didn’t necessarily always intend to).
Also – and I promise I won’t just say this for every entry – but… custom Cody Rhodes briefcase? For me to buy? Please and thank you.
As for who Rhodes should cash in on? I mean, it’s obvious, right…
4. A Continuation Of His Feud With Seth Rollins
Look I get that there’s probably going to be some pushback to this, and that’s fine. I hate rematches too.
But when Cody came back and had three consecutive pay-per-view matches with Seth Rollins, culminating in one of the best Hell in a Cell matches of the past few decades, it made me wonder, “Hey, maybe these guys are on to something here”.
I am not suggesting that they go right back at it, because even with the months-long break between Cody’s injury and his return, people are not going to take kindly to an immediate part four to this saga.
But I get a real Batman/Joker “I guess we’re destined to do this forever” vibe from these guys, and WWE would be crazy not to return to them somewhere down the line.
It’s not even just that they work well together, but their characters and history compliment each other so well that it’s like they were made for each other.
Cody Rhodes is the son of Dusty Rhodes, who helped mentor Seth Rollins and presented him with the first ever NXT Championship – Daddy issues? Check.
Rhodes is a clean-cut All-American “gee golly gosh” babyface, while Rollins is a fashion-forward lunatic who tried to start a cult – Personality clash? Double check.
Seth Rollins got to be on the cover of a WWE video game and was part of the most over stables of all time, while Cody Rhodes had to dress up like a magical space pervert just to get on TV – Professional resentment? That’s like a thousand checks.
Get these guys in the ring, or get them to couple’s counseling, because one way or the other they have some stuff left to work out.
3. Cody Rhodes Vs. Bray Wyatt
Rhodes wasn’t the only fan-favorite to return to WWE this year, as Bray Wyatt also shocked the fans by showing up at Extreme Rules with a brand new spooky gimmick and a whole list of spooky grudges.
Okay, so it wasn’t so much a shock as it was “wildly telegraphed”. But hey, so was Rhodes’, and that ruled too.
A Cody/Bray feud is one of those things that sounds so weird on paper, but could actually work because of that weirdness.
As two of the most compelling mic guys in the company, seeing them face off without ever hitting a move would be just as exciting as any technical clinic.
More than anything else, a WrestleMania 36-style Firefly Funhouse match between the pair could be the closest wrestling ever gets to art, as Wyatt guides Rhodes through a whistle-stop tour of his past humiliations, failures, and poor decisions regarding tattoos.
Plus it might be the only way we see Stardust again, as well as WWE making explicit references to AEW on television.
The appeal of a feud like this is so obvious, it’s undeniable; all Cody needs to do to get things started is Let Bray In.
2. Cody Rhodes’ New Nightmare (Factory)
I’m aware that the Nightmare Factory is still very much an AEW thing, but this is more an entry about the possibility of Cody establishing a similar stable for himself in WWE.
Most pitches involving Rhodes are inevitably going to focus on him as a singles performer, but you forget that Cody has always been a team player.
I mean, he helped found AEW by pulling together his contacts from a lifetime in the business.
If there’s one thing he knows, it’s bringing people together to create a formidable wrestling force.
What’s great about this is that it works as both a heel or a face move; does Cody garrison his forces to take on the Bloodline, or does he build a contingent of underutilized workers to cause havoc in the company as they try to fix a career full of perceived slights (dare I say… AEW 2.0)?
A proper stable with Rhodes at the head could definitely help Rhodes seems like less of a floating quantity, and more like a real part of the team.
1. Cody Rhodes: NXT Champion
Stop throwing things at me, because a) you know I’m right and b) I am an article on the internet, not a person, so you’re just going to break your computer screen.
It doesn’t have to happen right away, but Cody needs to win the belt his father created in the brand his father helped create.
Just a few short years ago NXT was the place to be for wrestlers exactly like Cody (i.e. indie darlings with a chip on their shoulder, mic drop).
Like a lot of things on this list, a Cody run in NXT could very easily help elevate the rest of the brand’s roster, and bring back some goodwill from fans that was lost upon the rebrand to NXT 2.0.
All that aside though, from a pure storyline standpoint it works too well. Cody returns to the brand he helped destroy during the so-called Wednesday Night Wars. The brand his father helped create. To take the gold he was never given.
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