A WWE Hall of Famer has shared an insight into the conversations he had with Cody Rhodes ahead of his first WrestleMania main event.
Speaking on Wrestling Life Online, Diamond Dallas Page was asked about his focus on health and wellbeing and how that started for him, explaining:
“Over years, you get enlightened to a certain degree. Some of us don’t, but I try to be. But when I broke my back, and they said my wrestling career was over, that was such a defining moment. And this is another thing I try to teach…
“The things that look like the worst thing to ever happen to me, every single time, turned out to be the best, and I applied this to everything.”
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DDP would then turn his attention to Cody Rhodes, who set out to “finish the story” at WrestleMania 39, losing to Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, only to achieve that goal the following year.
The WWE Hall of Famer would reflect on conversations he’d had with Rhodes and how he handled conflicting views of how it could all transpire, saying:
“Cody, let’s go back three years, and he’s coming into WrestleMania, and he’s first headlining WrestleMania. Up till then, he’s under the- I don’t want to say illusion- but he’s under the idea where this could really happen. He could be the man.
“And it’s one of those things you never think about (what) will really (happen) until you’re walking down the aisle and you know they can’t change the finish. He (had) a lot of people agreeing with him that it’s got to be this year, it’s got to end this story. And he came right here, right in this room, right over there at the table (points to his right), and we were talking about it, and I said to him ‘Would it really be so horrible if you didn’t go over this time?’ He goes, ‘I knew you were going to say that.’ I go, ‘It could be the best thing to happen to you.’ He goes, ‘But what if we lose momentum?’ I said, ‘What if you don’t?’ I mean, they got a lot of time built into that story, and Roman is an awesome talent. He’s everything you want in a champion. But Roman has paid his dues. Roman has carried (the company) and done all the PR…
“So, I just said to him, I said, ‘It could be the best thing to ever happen to you.’ And you don’t really believe it until it passes, and then that momentum starts back up again, and then it looks like, ‘Wow, (I’m) going to win the Rumble again. So now you’ve won the Rumble back-to-back. Four guys have done that. Four out of the thousands of wrestlers that there have been. Four.
“So now you haven’t won that world title yet, but boy, those titles and all the accolades that’s below that are building this insane foundation, and now it gets up to where, ‘Oh, The Rock’s coming in…’ Rock comes in, the house is already sold out for him and Roman, it’s already sold out two days in a row, but it’s The Rock. Technically, still for I don’t know the last eight years the biggest star in the world, and he’s one of us. He comes in and looks like ‘Ooh, he might take that spot with Roman.’
“Then, what happens? At some point, as The Rock would say, I had an epiphany, and let’s shake this whole thing up. Because also when you’re the world champion, like the guy, undisputed… You got to carry that on your back. You got to do all that PR. Rock doesn’t have time to do all that right? He’s a featured player.
“But again, a lot of speculation. This is where ‘Breathe.’ ‘Breathe.’ The story you tell yourself, ‘Well what if it all works out?’ Because 85% of the s**t we worry about, according to Cornell University, they did a study on it, 85% of the s**t we worry about never happens. That’s a study from the top Ivy League school in our country. It’s like saying Oxford did the study. But it got even more interesting after that, of the 15% of the people (where) their worries came to fruition, 79% of those people handled it way better than they thought they could. A lot of people were like ‘Wow, I’m glad that happened to me right now because I would have been really screwed up if…’ You learn from mistakes; you don’t learn by winning. You learn by falling down, f**king up, embarrassing yourself…”
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There was a lesson to learn in all of this, with DDP saying “owning your breath” was at its heart for Rhodes, concluding:
“The biggest thing that Cody will tell you over that period, the biggest thing was owning his breath through that journey. Because when he went over and that incredible finish that they come up with, after the night before with the tag, I mean wow. Credibility at a different level.”
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At the time of writing, Rhodes is a three-time Undisputed WWE Champion having lost the title to Sami Zayn at Night of Champions in the Triple Threat match with GUNTHER.
The End Of An Era
Roman Reigns losing the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship brought an era to an end for the men’s roster.
Introduced in 2016, the WWE Universal Championship would see Finn Balor as the first star to hold the title, with his reign starting at SummerSlam only to be cut short after just one day due to a shoulder injury suffered at the PLE.
The title would amass an impressive array of names as champions, with Kevin Owens, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins among those to hold it; however, it was Roman Reigns’ second run that would set the record of 1,316 days.
WrestleMania 38 saw Reigns defeat Brock Lesnar to become WWE Champion in a ‘Winner Takes All’ match, unifying the titles as the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Whereas unification would typically suggest that both titles were brought together, they would remain separate entities under Reigns’s run.
For Rhodes, he would beat Reigns to become WWE Champion at WrestleMania 40, with Undisputed being added to that title, and the Universal Championship being deactivated.
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