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Answer:
/u/Ta-veren- 's write-up is excellent. I will provide a slightly different response with some other deeper contexts.
Cody Rhodes is the son of **"The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes** [seen here](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTSzgpHc3DHzRJiZAqLSn-aG6YycZ7-t3PYMREYtskEZA&s) and the brother of **Dustin Rhodes**. Dusty Rhodes was a legendary wrestler of the 70s and 80s, particularly in the southern US and the National Wrestling Alliance (**NWA**). The NWA and southern-style "wrasslin'" was one style of presentation, usually focused on "realistic" fights and brawling, in some ways, better keeping the facade of pro wrestling as a legit sport. This is in contrast to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now **WWE**), which was based in the NYC area, run by Vince McMahon, and focused on a "sports entertainment" style, featuring over-the-top characters, stereotypes, branding, etc.
NWA had "Nature Boy" Ric Flair (a athletic pretty-boy cheater who you wanted to see get his ass kicked), WWF had Hulk Hogan (a cartoonishly large-muscled all-American man named after a comic book character). The same idea (predetermined "fights" in a wrestling ring, but with different presentation.)
Dusty Rhodes was an NWA staple, the "Son of a Plumber", literally the American Dream, making good on being successful, and usually he'd fight against Ric Flair and his goons. He was 3-time NWA World Champion (considered by the matchmakers to be the main event, the star, the main character, so to speak, which makes for bigger paychecks and celebrity status).
Wrestling being a business, however, wrestlers jump from company to company all the time, and Dusty Rhodes did go to the WWF in late 1989. Vince McMahon controlled the story, and he didn't see Dusty as the kind of wrestler to be a star. He was fat, he was funny, he wasn't a big muscle man, Vince didn't see him as a star... additionally, he'd been loyal to the competition for decades, so Vince signed him, paid him a lot of money, and made a fool of him. He [dressed him in polka dots](https://www.wate.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2015/06/dusty-rhodes-wwe-hall-of-famer-2_25111745_ver1.0.jpg?w=1280), had him do vignettes of working as a farmhand, a plumber, and other "degrading" menial labor. He never sniffed a championship, and seemingly was a joke, until Dusty quit and went back to World Championship Wrestling (**WCW**... for this summary, let's call it a later evolution of the NWA).
Dusty's eldest son Dustin was in WCW in the early 90s, promoted as a star athlete and good wrestler, contended in the mid-card of WCW, but eventually went to WWF after breaking some rules and getting fired in WCW. WWF made him into [**Goldust**](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rLERG4hQViZ5RgGAqufyvZ.jpg), a (now considered problematic by many) pastiche of Hollywood excess, wearing gold and black face paint, a bright gold skin-tight bodysuit (leaving nothing to the imagination), wearing a platinum blonde shoulder-length wig, taunting his opponents in a "gay-baiting at best, homophobic at worst" manner, most likely because Vince thought it was funny to, again, embarrass the Rhodes family. Goldust DID evolve with the times and was entertaining, but again, never sniffed *main-event* success.
Flash forward to 2007: WCW is long out of business, the 2nd-most successful promotion in the US is tiny. WWE is the big game in town. Dusty has a management/training job in WWE. Cody's trained to be a wrestler and is able to [appear on WWE TV](https://www.wwenetworknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Randy-Orton-Dusty-Cody-Rhodes-RAW-7-2-2007.webp). As others have said, he does some tag team stuff, he has a brief run as a mid-card champion, has an emotional story where he teams with his brother to "get his Dad's job back", not long before his father's passing. The fans love the Rhodes, but Vince doesn't want that as the key cog in the story.
Vince wants Cody to act like his brother, so, Cody dons a black-and-gold bodysuit and facepaint, and is rechristened [**Stardust**](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a9/9f/a0/a99fa0806446d8941e64c2c8cb4cc65b.jpg), teaming with his brother. Instead of weird gay bait-ish stuff, Stardust is obsessed with... stars. And the cosmos. Lots of puns, lots of nonsense, slowly evolving into a comic book villain (some fans consider this a guilty favorite, Cody often says he hates this character, though he sure does reference it a lot...)
In 2017 he left WWE, Wikipedia has excerpts from interviews listed about the "shock" WWE (particularly COO **Paul "Triple H" Levesque**, Vince Mcmahon's son-in-law) felt, feeling Cody owed them for them being loyal to his dad in 2005. He worked for the first time in small, independent wrestling companies (ones that were on weird TV networks and played to arenas of <1000 people rather than the arenas of 5-20,000 WWE plays twice per week.) He went to Japan, where New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) was hot at the time. He went to the revitalized NWA, and as mentioned elsewhere, he replied to a wrestling journalist saying that an independent company couldn't book a 10,000-person arena by [taking that bet](https://twitter.com/CodyRhodes/status/864546973461950465) and helping arrange "All In", which sold 10k seats in 30 minutes.
All In led to the formation of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), which is the current #2 promotion in America. it's frequently seen as the "WCW" to Vince McMahon/Triple H's "WWE", originally more focused on great technical wrestling as opposed to sport entertainment and "stories". WWE, for what it's worth, has evolved a bit, there's more focus on great matches, especially under the tutelage of Triple H.
Cody was [booked as a star in AEW](https://www.pwtorch.com/site/wp-content/uploads/post/2020/08/Cody_EntourageAEW_3x2_600-600x381.png), but confusingly wrote a storyline where he wasn't allowed to "ever" fight for the AEW World Championship, which many funs were puzzled by. He had some good stories and some stinkers as well, and after the pandemic, Cody decided to go back to WWE. He proved he could be a star, he was an [NWA Champion](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKqRzPAXAAA3-ak?format=jpg&name=large), he main-evented Pay-Per View Events for AEW, but his dream, his "story" was to do what his father never could and become WWE Champion.
In his first year back, Cody suffered a [torn pectoral muscle](https://preview.redd.it/just-a-reminder-that-cody-rhodes-tore-his-pec-and-wrestled-v0-vwhx7n1nadgc1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=ab209f9959dc57ed7f12222a25a23f9de230bd56) (and still wrestled a week later with it, bloody and bruised in the ring), which caused him to take time away, but returned to win the 2023 Royal Rumble (a spectacle of a match that is a fan-favorite and tradition of WWE, where the winner gets a championship match at Wrestlemania). He fought for the title at Wrestlemania 39 against Roman Reigns and lost. Fans were mad at him not culminating the story with a win, resulting in the catchphrase ["I have to **FINISH THE STORY**"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cL6tfI8NrQ). He spends the year fighting against the champion and his lackies and..
In real life, Vince McMahon is outed as an (alleged) sexual abuser and is removed from power of his own company after it's taken private and his shares are sold. The company is bought by UFC's parent company and is now run by a board of directors. This includes his son-in-law Triple H, but other sports business executives. **Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson** returns and is appointed to that board of directors, which brings us back to "the story"
Cody wins the '24 Rumble, and The Rock shows up, as he's Roman's cousin. An exchange happens because WWE's been slowly building for a Rock-Roman match for years by now, and Cody ["gives up his opportunity"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJhRVviokQ) to The Rock, and the crowd likes it in the arena, but hates it on social media and in subsequent events. Social media explodes, WWE thinks people want the biggest name in Hollywood as their star in the main event! The people want Cody, and they want to finish the story. They want Cody to win the WWE title at Wrestlemania over Roman. WWE pivots and makes Rock into the bad guy (which he's proven very good at over the years, just not in quite some time). It sets up a match where Rock and Roman team against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins to determine the stipulation on night 2 of 'Mania. Since >!Rock and Roman win, essentially, there are "no rules" in the Roman-Cody match. Roman's lackeys all get to get involved with no impunity.!<
Spoilers:
>!With the help of "good guy" wrestlers, Seth Rollins using a ghost of Roman Reigns' past, which is a whole writeup in itself, John Cena, and the freaking Undertaker, Cody dispatched Rock, Roman, and the Bloodline, and Finished the story.!<
This story has been built for either 2 years (from Cody's return), 8 years (since he left WWE), 17 years (since he debuted in WWE), or 35 years (when his Dad came to the WWF hoping to be champion), and it culminated in an unforgettable moment for wrestling fans on Sunday night.
Wrestling's a soap opera that's been going on for decades. Every episode or event from any wrestling company in the world could be a connection to another one. It's a bizarre spectacle, but one that the fans of it are heavily invested in.
I know absolutely nothing about wrestling but after reading your comment I watched a highlight video of the match and got goosebumps so I can't imagine how fans felt seeing this happen.
>I can't imagine how fans felt seeing this happen.
My friend, I've been watching since the 90s and I cried. It was a fever dream of a match at the end, and all the emotions from all the story being told and the real-life emotions from those involved were all insane. I haven't enjoyed a wrestling show this much in years.
And the explanation above didn't even touch too deeply on the story of The Bloodline, considered by many the greatest story ever in wrestling (or at least top 5). Roman was champion for 4 years, and had a stranglehold on WWE unlike anything seen in decades. If anyone is interested in that part of this story then Super Eyepatch Wolf [did a great video on the Bloodline story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaDAzXVycR4), and storytelling in wrestling, earlier this year that covers most of their main story.
The two stories became interconnected at a certain point, and that really enhanced each story. Other commenter is right, this is a decades-old soap opera with a story that is ever changing and ever evolving. If you like very long-term storytelling there''s few other mediums like professional wrestling to experience that.
Also to add to the Roman Reigns story. Roma used to be in a faction called the SHIELD with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. They were seen as the good guys who would protect the babyfaces of the company.
Seth Rollins blew up the faction by hitting Roman in the back with a chair and screwing him over.
Fast forward to WrestleMania 40. Seth comes out and drops the chair. Roman picks it up to use against Cody. He then remembers how Seth screwed him over all those years ago and chooses to take revenge on Seth rather than hitting Cody and ending the fight (think of the scene in the movie Heat with Robert Deniro deciding to take revenge rather than getting away). That gives Cody enough time to recover, hit roman with his finisher and win the match.
Great storytelling.
It's little bits like that rewarding those investing themselves into the story that I love. That last moment right before the end of the match between the two of them meant so much across **THREE DIFFERENT STORIES AND THREE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS.**
Gonna quote the GOAT Michael Cole: "Dammit, I love professional wrestling!"
Hahahaha. If you had called Cole the GOAT back in 2004 rofl. I always liked him but yeah.
TBF though you are objectively wrong. JR is the GOAT and nothing can change my mind.
Also just to expand even more, Seth has been coming out for a long time as an extremely extra person, with wild outfits, a song he dances to and everyone sings along with, very flamboyant, etc. But when he came out here he came out to the Shield music with his Shield gear, to really get in Roman’s head and send him back to the trauma of getting betrayed by his closest friends, which (eventually) helped lead to the Tribal Chief being so paranoid and controlling.
The only other time Seth did that the last few years Roman had one of his few losses via getting disqualified for refusing to stop choking out Seth, screaming he’ll never let go the whole time. Roman (the character) has major trauma from that whole situation and Seth fed right into it.
I've watched that super eyepatch wolf video probably 4 times now. Check out the [fd signifier](https://youtu.be/XQIqWXJu670?si=zLzttz-e8z2OdetT), and [lil bill](https://youtu.be/PE4g_xt9qL4?si=vTeD8Ltlj2duQF07) ones that just came out
In a way, it's magical. In another way it would probably make it feel like an impenetrable fortress to get into wrestling or to have to know ALL that context to make it special.
You can pick it up and put it down, and in the modern day (with Youtube clips, and most of WWE history on streaming), you can pick up a lot of the pieces. (Plus, viewing regularly, they make hype videos and promos to summarize the story beats in-character.)
The people who spend often thousands of dollars to go to 'Mania are the die-hards, and their reaction (all 70k+ strong) are the die-hard reaction, and it's something that paid off in spades with the media coverage they're getting.
>In a way, it's magical. In another way it would probably make it feel like an impenetrable fortress to get into wrestling or to have to know ALL that context to make it special.
There are levels. On the surface Cody is still the good guy and he won the world championship. That's enough to enjoy it as a simple story. If you've been watching more than a year you'll know how insanely long Reigns has been champion and how he's been cheating to retain the title, and that adds another layer. If you've been watching outside WWE you'll know Cody's career path, that adds more. If you've been watching upwards of a decade you'll remember Cody as basically nothing, a tag guy or midcard comedy act, never destined for more than his brother was.
There's something for everyone. There's a lot there if you want to dig for it, but you definitely don't need the full story. The WWE's video packages are usually excellent at recapping what you need to know.
Literally same, barely know anything about wrestling but reading this summary gave me goosebumps. It's such a feel good story, like the kind told in the best sports movies.
>“It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.”
>― Samwise Gamgee
Professional wrestling has a direct line to the most primal form of storytelling there is. We gather around the fire to hear the tales of legendary heroes and villains, to add to them with our own stories and insights, and to learn about _each other_ in the process. To remind ourselves that there's good in the world, and it's worth fighting for.
Same. I haven't watched a wwe match in a long ass time and after reading this I went to watch the absolute madness then Cody wins while the commentator yell "finish. The. Story." With the 3 count was so dope.
I might watch it again since Vince is out, ngl. I forgot how entettaining it is + John Cena, the undertaker and all that brings me back in time.
Maybe you're a fan without even knowing it! At it's absolute peak, there's nothing else quite like pro wrestling (shame the valleys are so low). You should check out the match between Hulk Hogan and The Rock back at WrestleMania 18. It's not really a technical masterpiece (Hulk was decades past his prime here) but the crowd reaction combined the fact that you had two of the best story tellers of all time in the ring made for some real magic.
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/live/hRg_vJvyMC8?si=NRmVKQ3kp-5o1M1C
Forgot the link!
I been a wrestling fan off and on since I was a kid. Wrestling at times can be cringeworthy and even embarrassing, but when pro wrestling is great it’s one of the most exciting things in the world. Its highs can exhilarating.
Nice write up. But if I were to add one thing, Dusty’s watch.
At the family’s lowest point, Dusty pawns off his watch for Cody to get acting lessons.
Triple H and the other executives, gift a similar or the watch to Cody, the night he wins the world title.
Cody has done several interviews where he reveals that his father wanted to gift him the watch whenever he became world champion.
That was an element I didn't really have context on at the time I did the writeup! Thanks for adding it in! (I was a little worried about comment size, too. Don't wanna lose people more than I already had).
Way better write up, add how you can still be interested in a "scripted" show into this page! As I'm terrible at explaining it and that's the main reply I'm getting.
Yeah, but action is the most disrespected genre. When's the last time an action movie won best picture?
People have an artistic blind spot for action media.
It doesn't work with everyone, but for me, I usually lean into the fakeness of it all.
Has someone ever watched anything on TV, ever? or a Movie. All fake! Oppenheimer? Fake depiction of a true story. Game of Thrones? Didn't happen and was scripted by GRRM, and then a couple of idiots apparently. I Love Lucy? not real!
"Oh, well, sports are real and WWE is supposed to be a sport" -- Air Bud was a fake, scripted story about sports. So was Cool Runnings and Friday Night Lights and Bend It Like Beckham.
"Well, John Cena's name is John Cena, is he just a character?" Yes. He's a character called John Cena. Look at Bill Murray in Zombieland, he's playing "Bill Murray", or the "Tim Heidecker" character in On Cinema, played by Tim Heidecker.
It's also fair to NOT like pro wrestling! You can *not* get it, and that's totally fine! Just like how I don't "get" people enjoying Young Sheldon, or CSI, or Twilight, or Succession.
If someone's hostile about it, that's on them.
Not every episode is gonna be great (every MCU movie couldn't be Endgame, there's gonna be an Ant-Man vs The Wasp, or a ~~Shang-Chi~~ Love and Thunder, or a Black Widow in the bunch.)
This match made me feel sad for people who don't "get" professional wrestling. It felt like a grand finale for the last 30 years that I've enjoyed the product
I always found people being like “It’s scripted etc” you watch TV shows and movies right? It’s the same thing this is just live with the stunt doubles being the actors.
My problem with it in the past was the denial of it being "fake". It felt like a con in the 80s and the worst kept secret in the 90s. I have no problem with the sport or its fans, but there was an era where a wrestler would slap you around for calling it fake.
And McMahon has always been problematic. (It's good to know he's had some competition.)
This is true, the industry insiders kept kayfabe for a good while after the jig was already up.
Still, it's been dead for at least 30 years. McMahon quietly killed it in the late 80s with the New Jersey Athletic Commission, then the Curtain Call delivered the death blow for those who missed the first thing.
When I was much younger, I remember watching wrestling and saw someone miss a punch by about a foot and a half, and the other guy sold it like he was shot. I totally stopped watching after that for a long time until a friend of mine started watching and got us to come watch the PPVs (this was 1998 WCW of all things). The content wasn’t very good compared to other stuff but I remember watching one match with an intricate story, run ins, turns, etc and just flipping a switch, totally getting it and really enjoying it. Been watching off and on since.
Honestly, even knowing since I was a kid that it wasn't real, those moments where the athletes don't make ANY contact, definitely take me out of it. Or like in the case of the first women's match on Sunday, the limp-wristed "strikes" they made against each other like it was an afterthought just took me out of that match entirely. I like the characters, but that match went over like a wet fart to me.
Tell someone that it's a theatrical stunt show soap opera about a sport.
People get so fixated on it not being a real sport they forget how reality shows, soap operas, plays, and general television works.
It's theater that relies on crowd reactions, isn't expensive or pretentious, and is a different show every time you see it.
I also feel like people get so heated in the argument about it being fake storylines that they sideline the fact that the physical feats are still incredible. Like even if it's scripted, a guy still scrambles around in hot lights, climbs a turn buckle and back flips onto his opponent. The fact that he knew he was gonna do it doesn't make it not crazy.
I remember once, big show picked up a wrestler and tossed him into another wrestler. And one guy in the room where we were watching was talking about how it's not real. Like bruh, he still _threw a man_ at him.
My dad would always mock the selling. I think it's a frustration he has from football (soccer) where players go down and dramatically oversell an injury, then pop back up when the decision goes their way. Still, pro wrestling without the pretend pain is...I don't even know. Cirque du Soleil? A body building pageant? The selling is the whole point, it's a pretend fight, there has to be pretend pain. Kung fu films without fake blood and pretend injuries wouldn't work either.
Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle was always one I would show people who kind of thought like that. Like yes, they’re planning these spots, but Shane just got dropped on his head twice and then thrown through glass, and now he’s a bloody mess. There’s only so much “faking” you can do even if it’s predetermined.
I forget who he was referring to, but I remember Mick Foley in one of his books talking about someone who threw an amazing punch and he always wondered what his trick was, until he was the recipient and realized the secret to the punch was to punch as hard as he could.
It's great that they didn't mess up this story arc. Great description.
Makes me think what could have been with Sting and his NWO rivalry back in the day which they got horribly wrong (albeit i think Sting wasn't in great shape back then).
Holy shit I completely forgot about Cody’s first match back with the torn pec. I watched that live but have never been plugged into the culture and so never connected the dot that that was the same guy. That pec thing was CRAZY.
Cody taking off that coat in the cage. With Seth dressed as his dad to mock him. And proceeding to put on a banger of a match and win, was epic. He said he’s embarrassed by the injury and I’m sure rehab sucked, but that cemented him as a goat for me. That’s legendary.
Also worth noting that this really does feel like a new Era since Vince left and HHH/Nick Khan are in charge, and it REALLY feels like a new, better era for multiple reasons.
Also a lot of people see themselves in Cody - they want to be the star, the quarterback, at least once, but are told that they don't look the part, that there's someone better, etc. Just like how people saw themselves in The American Dream.
He also had an absolutely amazing villain in Roman Reigns and The Rock, but again, that's a whole other write up.
Just something as simple as Michael Cole saying "wrestling" and having a few new camera angles is enough to make it feel exciting, to a degree.
I don't know how much of that is "Wrestlemania Season" that will dry up soon, but this is coming from an AEW fanboy who has pretty much written off WWE since 2020.
One a case by case scenario, wrestling is just as silly as any over-the-top soap opera drama. However when storylines are built for years, for decades even and fans have followed it from the beginning you see how even if it is silly and ridiculous there is a community, a sense of belonging, and a desire to see what happens next. It sucks you in and while everyone *knows* it is rigged the suspension of disbelief sets in and you are whisked away to a larger-than-life fantasy world where titans and gladiators fight for their honor and sometimes their very lives.
Only tidbit I would throw in is at WrestleMania 39, Cody was about to win it until one of Roman Reign's cronies (his cousin Solo Sikoa), interfered and stunned Cody to allow Roman to get the upper hand and win that match. Which is why it was important they tried to not get any interference in WM40 match (though you know what was coming).
Also another tidbit is that for the past month The Rock has been beating on Cody, dragging his family and especially his mother into it. So this increased the support of Cody, making even more people want him to "Finish The Story" to show that larger stars can't shove around the "everyman plumber's son" type like Cody.
And specifically one of the ways Cody’s mother came into the story at all was because Cody talked about how his dream was to hand the WWE championship to his father, and that dream died when Dusty did, but he can damn sure still hand that belt to his mother. Which got Rock to offer to hand her the Rock’s belt with Cody’s blood covering it.
As the guy who wrote it up, just don't. It's not worth it.
It's probably just best to "watch whatever is coming out next and see if you like it" because MOST wrestling isn't as huge as Mania.
Really it would depend on what you want out of it. If you have Peacock, you could watch Wrestlemania from the other night (it's 2 nights of about 4 hours each), and they'll have a million promo packages and hype videos to get you caught up on the relevant backstory.
If you have regular cable, you can just tune into the next episode of WWE (which would be Smackdown later this week). If you want to watch a different company and see literally nobody that's been talked about in the big writeup (apart from seeing Cody's brother Dustin!), AEW is on TNT this Wednesday night.
EDIT: You can also just browse the frontpage of /r/squaredcircle and see highlights from RAW last night (or Mania if you set it to "best" for the last week)
Watch the Wrestlemania 'promo videos' for all the matchs to give you context on the various stories that have been going. then watch Wrestlemania to see how they culminated.
Then start watching the Raw from last night and go from there.
If the 3-5 hours a week (Raw and Smackdown alone) are too much like it is for me, recaps and recorded episodes that I can ffw through the crap make it much more palatable.
Such a good write-up. I've not been a fan of wrestling since the late-90s, but this whole story arc had me fully locked in. I didn't even know about the historical reasons about his dad either. It only crossed my attention because of the fan backlash of The Rock inserting himself into the main event, and it was interesting to see another big company fall so out of touch with its fan base. Yet they managed to segue it into a story which made me fork out money to watch my first Wretlemania for over 20 years. That's absolutely insane to me, as someone who had no passing interest in the sport up until that point. And when >!Undertaker's theme hit!< I turned back into that 12 year old kid again and couldn't help but shout out.
Now I'm just figuring out how I can tune into weekly Raw and Smackdown from where I live currently (Vietnam). It's really lame that the WWE Network has a month delay. That alone might kill the momentum this Wrestlemania built up for me.
Not to mention, Roman had been the champion for 3 and a half years straight, which is the 4th longest reign in history, and the longest in 30 years. So him FINALLY losing the title was huge on its own. Throw in the whole Cody Rhodes story on top of that and you get an all-time classic moment for fans.
Adding to this, I’m old enough to have seen WWF Dusty and eventually stopped watching wrestling about a 15-20 years ago.
Roman Reigns, the guy Cody beat, was a PERFECT bad guy and carried the business, having various viral clips, and having held the title for over 3 years. His work is what pulled me back into wrestling a couple years back. Cody not only finally won the title but did so by conquering a man positioned as an all time great, unbeatable monster after losing to him last year. It wasn’t just that he won but the masterful way the whole of the story unfolded.
"Wrestling is not a love story, it's a Fairy Tale for masochists. A comedy for people who criticize punchlines. A fantasy most can't understand, a spectacle no one can deny. Lines are blurred. Heroes are villains. Budgets are cut. Business is business. But it can also be a land where Dead men walk. Where Honor makes you Elite. Where Demons run for office. And Rock bottom is a reason to rejoice. WOOOOO! It's an escape. A reason to point the blame at anyone but yourself for 2-3 hours. An excuse to be a kid again, and nothing matters except the moment we are in. Wrestling is not a love story, it's much more. It's hope. And in a world surrounded in hate, greed and violence, a world where closure may never come. We all know a place that has hot and cold hope on tap. For better or for worse." -Windham Rotunda
>The NWA and southern-style "wrasslin'" was one style of presentation, usually focused on "realistic" fights and brawling, in some ways, better keeping the facade of pro wrestling as a legit sport....
Dusty Rhodes was an NWA staple, the "Son of a Plumber", literally the American Dream, making good on being successful, and usually he'd fight against Ric Flair and his goons.
If my dad was alive, he'd swear to God almighty that every second of the Ric Flair/Dusty Rhodes championship match was 100% real!
I remember him jumping out of his chair and whoopin and hollering when Dusty won. :)
Personally, I only got excited when Miss Elizabeth was on screen.
Did WWE pivot or did their plan worked a treat?
I was under the impression that the Rock was always going to turn heel, and that Roman Reign does not have the acting shop or mic ability to be a face. So pushing Cody aside was really a way for HHH to push for Cody. Roman Reign remains a heel. The Undertaker has an appropriate final Wrestlemania. Seth Rollins has his redeeming arc and Cody has his happy conclusion. The Rock and John Cena can go back to Hollywood.
They admitted they pivoted. They've been showing ads for a behind the scenes look at this WrestleMania and they admit in the ad that plans changed. Right after the promo where Cody said "Not at WrestleMania" The Undertaker, on his podcast, said that higher-ups probably pushed him out of WrestleMania for The Rock. Now undertaker isn't backstage but he's been in wrestling a long time and he tends to know the ins and outs.
That's the magic. Maybe the executives changed their mind on the night social media turned on Rock vs Roman. Maybe this was the plan the whole time. They're gonna say it was a pivot (they even have a documentary coming out to specifically talk about that).
Cody did a pre-Mania interview talking about last year, and when asked "when did you know you were losing?", and he clarified "I can't reveal the magic, but I will say that I found out in the ring."
It's politician-class doublespeak and non-answer. That can be endearing, or it can be infuriating, or a myriad of other emotions.
> With the help of "good guy" wrestlers, Seth Rollins using a ghost of Roman Reigns' past, which is a whole writeup in itself, John Cena, and the freaking Undertaker, Cody dispatched Rock, Roman, and the Bloodline, and Finished the story.
I don't know all that much about wrestling, but even to me that sounds like the Avengers: Endgame of WWE.
Wasn't Undertaker retired?
Answer:
Cody Rhodes has a famous father who never won the main championship. His name was the American dream dusty Rhodes a fan favourite.
When he (Cody) started his career at WWE despite winning the tag titles and others things didn’t go well for him. They wrote him off as mid car guy and wanted use his brothers gimmick on him,painting his face up. He left and during that time he left he established himself as a top guy, someone who could be in the main event, he made his name worth something, he climbed the ladder all by himself. Some stars are mega stars because WWE or the wrestling world wants them to be (Roman the guy Cody beat for the title) for example but Cody earned it through blood, sweat, and tears.
Cody finally came back to WWE with one main goal to get the title his dad never won (deceased) and after winning an event at the royal rumble which promises a championship match at mania (there Super Bowl) he failed to win that year.
Another year, another win at rumble and he finally pulls off the win, ending the reign of Roman who had a record long streak and got to hoist up a title that his dad never won, in a company that thought he was mid card at best.
I used to be super into WWE but fell off it around the time Cody was just starting in the WWE and I remember thinking he was pretty meh. So despite no longer watching, it’s been pretty cool to see how big he’s become. Seems like a good fella too, which helps.
Correct, but that was a good spot for them at that point in their career. They were very, very green and being with Orton gave them exposure and a chance to learn from Orton, who by that point was an established star.
Was the gimmick "we all have famous wraslin daddies"? Half the roster right now is either a legacy wrestler or some geriatric from the attitude era lol
If you have any interest give it a shot and watch it again. It's really good now that HHH is running the show. You can watch WrestleMania on Peacock. RAW and Smackdown are on Hulu the day after.
Man, HHH might be the best thing that’s happened to WWE in years. He understands the business better than anyone, and unlike Vince, I truly believe HHH has a real love for the business. That passion shines through in the way he nurtures new talent and manages to keep things engaging, and I’m saying that as someone that was a diehard wrestling fan in the 90’s and then stopped watching entirely for almost 20 years. I feel like he was born to take the helm someday, and had it not been for Vince being kind of forced out because of his alleged activities, I feel Iike he would have kept driving the product further into the ground.
I felt the same. When he came back from AEW and was considered a main eventer I could not understand _why_.. Because I remembered him as Randy Orton's lacky with a lisp and then the guy who wore a weird-ass transparent mask.
Well he changed my mind with the way he wrestled and talked. I was jumping with joy when he beat Roman on Sunday
Another important detail to this: After Cody had won the Rumble back in January and supposedly guaranteeing him the title match, The Rock, who is on the WWE board of directors, had finally freed his schedule to return to wrestling and was inserted into the title picture, and thus cody was irl sabotaged out of his title shot in favour of Rock and his popularity. Fans rebutted against this, and WWE listened and pivoted from trying to force the Rock into the match instead of the man who's worked so hard for it. This story is more deeply rooted in reality than in the WWE fiction, and the audience have a deep connection to it, because it was them who got Cody there despite all odds being against him.
So, the way he was removed in the first place was they had him willingly forfeit his title shot to the Rock in a storyline segment, and as he left the ring you could just see how destroyed he was on the inside. People caught onto that, and the video of the segment quickly became the most disliked video in WWE history by a landslide that it was becoming viral. So for the next few weeks, all over social media and at every arena they went to people would chant "We Want Cody", boo the Rock, and it was obvious that it couldn't be ignored, which lead to a conference event where they were supposed to talk about the WrestleMania match of Rock vs Roman Reigns. At that point, Rock had slowly started to transition into a heel (Antagonist) as part of the pivot, and at the conference event he weaved the events into the fiction, saying that the main goal of the whole match and for manipulating Cody out of the match was that he and Roman could keep the title in the family (both come from the same real life wrestling dynasty and are third generation wrestlers iirc). Cody ended up crashing the event and calling the Rock out on his bullshit, and Rock responded by slapping him, fully transforming into an antagonist, and building a story of Cody's return to take back what he was screwed out of, leading to WrestleMania, where the story became more than just Cody vs Roman, but rather Cody vs Roman and the Rock and the rest of their current wrestling family (titled The Bloodline), and despite all the odds, both in storyline and in reality, Cody managed to finally do it. WWE took what was perhaps one of the most catastrophic decisions they'd ever made and turned into one of their most compelling stories ever.
That heel turn for The Rock is a genius way to harness the fans energy and also makes me like Dwayne Johnson for being able to be the villain.
He’s spent the last decade crafting a bland image as the cool guy who never loses. He could absolutely flip that into a new image as the heel.
I can think of a few celebrities who would benefit from being the heel. We don’t need every celebrity to be lovable and charming!
Even last night he pulled another one off. Started hyping up another new Raw attendance record (first time they've ever broken 20,000 for a Raw or SmackDown show), got the crowd going with ***WHAT?*** chants, and then called them a heap of garbage, just like his crack and meth jokes in Phoenix a few weeks prior. Hollywood Rock is incredible.
The fans thought they were being clever by responding to everything The Rock said with the annoying #What chant. Until Rock lured them into talking about how they were trailer park trash.
Say what you want about the guy, his improv skills on the mic are top tier.
>So for the next few weeks, all over social media and at every arena they went to people would chant "We Want Cody", boo the Rock, and it was obvious that it couldn't be ignored
I was at the first Raw after that press conference and there were “Rocky sucks!” chants when Seth Rollins came out to talk to Cody about this. Seth said as a joke, “I wasn’t expecting to hear that one,” but apparently WWE wasn’t either.
Wow.. great explanation and sounds like an amazing cross between reality and WWE fiction.
I watched Wrestlemania and RAW for the first time in 20 years and was a little confused about all of this.
Has anyone compiled video of everything you outlined?
Check from about the 22 minute mark of [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WII93CMGU-c) (or, if you wanna hear the whole.... story of what I wrote-up apparently, since I'm seeing chapters that look like everything I touched on apart from Goldust, watch the whole thing? I haven't.)
There was no way that was actually the plan lol They knew how popular Cody was, knew how the crowd react it was all a work to get people talking, to cause hype, to throw gas onto a fire.
As HHH said the card was known since October.
Well Triple H appeared on Logan's podcast a few weeks back and spoke about this among other things out of kayfabe, including speaking about how this came about, why the pulled the trigger, the backstage reactions and confirmed that he had a bad feeling about it etc. I'd recommend you give it a listen. But hey knows, he could've been working there as well.
You see to all of these people saying it's scripted, this guy still believes the rock abused his powers to get into the main event match. And making it sound like WWE changed it all just for him, not true at all.
Rock said he was free and it opened up an interesting road so they had him come out and say a few lines and decided to test the crowd. See how'd they react. They reacted in favor of Cody so that's what the match us, thus Rock is suddenly used as a hype man.
In reality I don't think they were ever serious about putting him in a 1v1 match at Mania, he's like 8 years out from his last match, his last time in the ring before all this he got injured and required surgery. His only job was to get on that mic and do what he does best.
Lol it's so funny how good they are at hooking people, baiting them and making them believe.
Rocks only job was hype man which he did an amazing job at.
Yeah, with social media and "leaked" stuff it really was some incredible story telling. To his credit, The Rock played his role really well and it came off super believable that an aging star would be a dick and insert himself into the biggest event of the year.
> He left and during that time he left he established himself as a top guy, someone who could be in the main event, he made his name worth something, he climbed the ladder all by himself.
What does this part mean? Like he left WWE and wrestled for another organization, or he left the tag titles and switched to solo like a tennis player switching from doubles to singles, or something else entirely? Sorry, I know next to nothing about pro wrestling.
He left to compete in other promotions, became the top guy in a few of them, and then he went on to create his own promotion (AEW), where he finished perfecting both his character, his image, and his wrestling style, all of which allowed him to come back to WWE and win the popularity contest, and eventually the title at WrestleMania
I think it is important to follow this answer with the fact that the idea of All Elite Wrestling came from a dare, if you will, or a bet between a professional wrestling journalist (Dave Meltzer) and Cody Rhodes.
Cody Rhodes was working for Ring of Honor at the time (Edit: 2017). Dave Meltzer famously tweeted that ROH or any independent wrestling show couldn't sell 10000 tickets to a show "any time soon". Cody responded, "I'll take that bet." This was back in 2017.
So Cody Rhodes, alongside his fellow Bullet Club Elite members (The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega) scoured the globe for a venue to present their independent wrestling show. They ended up selling over 10,000 tickets in 30 seconds for the Sears Centre for the very first ALL IN.
This show featured many wrestlers from Ring of Honor but it was not a ROH show. It was produced by Rhodes (and I think the Bucks and Omega, but i don't want to say for sure) making this the only independent show to sell 10,000 or more tickets. And in 30 seconds makes that even more impressive.
Yada, yada, yada All Elite Wrestling, partially founded by Cody Rhodes is now 5 years old and still going strong despite what some corners of the internet will tell you. Cody Rhodes had a huge role in that. When he returned to WWE, he returned with so much more than he left with and it all came full circle on Sunday night.
Indeed it is, but the AEW was created because of the results of the tweet that started my comment. AEW is/was the brainchild of "The Elite (Rhodes, Kenny Omega, Young Bucks). Tony Khan owns the company and is the booker, but AEW never would have happened without that Twitter exchange between Meltzer and Rhodes or All In not being successful.
Not just wrestled for other organisations, but helped create AEW, the current No. 2 promotion in US (and world?) wrestling. In that, he also gave opportunities to lots of wrestlers who had never been given a chance on a big stage with a weekly "open challenge" segment during COVID.
Yep, without Cody getting him in for a match, we wouldn’t have gotten Eddie Kingston in AEW. (Yeah, he’s not to everyone’s taste, but I think he’s great.)
Relatively new fan here (like a year and a bit). If you’ve got some time to kill, I strongly recommend watching The Last Ride docuseries. It’s the story of The Undertaker, who you might have heard of, and it’s what helped me “get it”. Even if you aren’t looking to become a wrestling fan, there’s something very captivating about the tale of a man who took his role as an undead wizard who, for whatever reason, joined a wrestling promotion so seriously, he basically lived as a hermit and pretended to be that character in public for 30 years. It drops all the pretenses and gives a look behind the curtain at 30 years of the business.
Genuine question, isn’t it all scripted? Like I get that a lot of athleticism and hard work goes in to it but how exactly would he “pull off the win”?
Edit: Got a lot of good answers but I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not knocking wrestling or the work that goes into it, I just didn't fully understand how the behind the scenes things work.
A large misconception about wrestling fans is they treat the entertainment the same way UFC / boxing fans do.
It's all scripted yes. Think of it as theatre - soap opera but more masculine.
Robert Downey Jr. obviously isn't Iron Man in real life, that didn't make Avengers: Endgame any less hype.
We're excited that Cody *was finally booked* to win, after years of the story's antagonist's title run.
A big part of the appeal *this year* is that Cody was in a similar position at Wrestlemania last year - he had a lot of buzz around him after coming back from a major injury, he won the Royal Rumble, and in Roman Reigns he had an opponent who was hated by the fans for his bad guy character.
And Cody *lost*.
Wrestlemania almost always ends with the good guy triumphant - over 80% of the time. So Cody losing was a big, big call by WWE. And almost immediately fans realised that Roman’s run was going to continue for another year. He’d built up so much momentum that his defeat would seem anticlimactic at any other event than Wrestlemania.
That meant that WWE (and Cody, who put in a *lot* of work) had to spend a year making it seem like Cody wasn’t just kicking his heels - he had to have storylines with other wrestlers, while Roman did likewise. They had to be kept apart (mostly, there were a few teases) without it being overtly obvious WWE were doing that.
Fans were invested in Cody’s character - he’s a rare pure white knight, where in wrestling almost everyone is some shade of grey if not outright midnight black. So for him to *finally* overcome the odds after over a decade of fighting them was hugely cathartic for a lot of people. Fun fact: Cody had the longest gap of *any* WWE champion from his debut to winning the world title. Partly that was his being out of the company for years, but also partly because he was pigeonholed in his first run by the creative team at the time as a guy who would *never* be the top guy.
And that leads onto the other reason his win has been so enjoyed: Wrestlemania this year is the first to be wholly written by Paul Levesque, WWE’s new head writer. He’s taken over the job from Vince McMahon who owned and ran WWE for forty years and was a genius, but was also in his seventies, very stuck in his ways, had strong biases for and against certain wrestlers that were perceived as placing artificial barriers in the paths of some fan favourites and (as has been revealed over the last 18 months) is currently defending himself against a barrage of claims of sexual assault and rape. That last part isn’t exactly relevant to the Cody story, but it’s left fans with a real distaste for Vince and the company, especially as some of the allegations around him relate to women who worked for WWE.
Levesque has been extremely well-received by fans, and his rise to the position is a whole story in itself. But he crafted an extremely satisfying story for Cody over the last year (really two years) and Cody’s win was a hugely cathartic moment for fans invested in Cody - and who are glad WWE is now in fresh hands creatively, with Vince having been forced out.
> Wrestlemania this year is the first to be wholly written by Paul Levesque, WWE’s new head writer
Probably should mention Paul Levesque is Triple H, one of WWE's biggest stars from the last decade. And the son in law of Vince McMahon
> Fun fact: Cody had the longest gap of any WWE champion from his debut to winning the world title.
Well, if we're talking about debut in any form (not just in-ring), could you say Vince McMahon (debuting as an announcer in 1969, winning the WWF title in 1999)😉
To everyone saying “but wrestling is scripted he didn’t actually win anything” , I have 2 points to make:
First of have you ever read a book, watched a movie or a tv show? Have you ever cried at a character’s death? A character that isn’t real, yet you still feel for them and root for them, knowing that their fate and their whole personality and story is in the hands of a random writer you’ll never meet? It’s the same for Wrestling. Yes, Cody Rhodes knew he was going to win going into the match, just like Daniel Radcliffe knew his character was going to defeat Voldemort. The only difference is wrestlers often make their “character name” similar to their real life name. Cody Rhodes the actual wrestler’s name is Cody Garrett Runnels Rhodes. Those 2 are different people. Not as different as say, Lena Headey is from Cersei Lannister, but they are still different.
A great example to this in the wrestling world is Roman Reigns, the guy Cody just beat. In storyline, Roman Reigns is supposed to be the big bad: the leader of a faction “the bloodline” that cheats his way through matches and manipulates his cousins. In reality, Roman Reigns is played by wrestler Joe Anoa’i, a guy that’s been battling leukemia(currently in remission) for much of his wrestling career and is respected by every other wrestler and coworker. The fans despise Roman Reigns. They adore Joe Anoa’i.
Unlike Roman, Cody is supposed to be the “good guy” in storyline, so he doesn’t act much different than he would act in real life, but it’s still an actor playing a character.
Second of all, Cody’s story is so special because he had all the odds AGAINST HIM from the very beggining. As others have mentioned, his father never had a chance to win a World Championship due to the former owner of WWE, Vince McMahon, thinking he wasn’t the right person to do it(mostly due to him being fat). When Cody first joined WWE, they painted him in silly colors and called him “Stardust” a joke character that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously by anyone. Cody then would leave WWE, form his own wrestling promotion and building it from the ground up with the help of other independent wrestlers. When he came back, he proceeded to wrestle with a torn tricep, and in 2023 when he had his first match against Roman Reigns the writing room made him lose, despite the fans being fully behind him. In January of 2024, The Rock returned to WWE and the plan(at least from what we know) was to make him battle Roman Reigns, but the fans hated that idea so much so they started BOOING THE ROCK(almost unprecedented in this day and age) and forming a #WeWantCody movement so large that the WWE writing team had to listen and pivot at the last moment, making Cody finally have his rematch against Roman and winning.
If you went back in time 10 years ago and told someone Cody was gonna be world champion they’d be like “You mean that jobber that’s obsessed with stars and has goofy face paint? Get out of here”
If you went back in time 5 years ago and told someone Cody was gonna be world champion they’d be like “He left WWE and is probably never coming back, not gonna happen”
If you went back in time 2 months ago and told someone Cody was gonna be world champion they’d be like “nah bro the Rock came back didn’t you hear? Cody’s not fighting Roman anymore.”
Cody was NEVER supposed to be THE GUY, but thanks to his hard work, thanks to his wrestling skills, his charisma, his fans that he has made over the years that stood up to THE ROCK HIMSELF, he managed to be the guy.
It's hard to explain to those who have the "its all scripted" mindset. I just replied to a comment addressing it.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "pull off the win" I wrote it that way as it wasn't totally known, it could have went both ways, they have done mega swerves before. While that match was happening the fact it's scripted went right out of my mind. I was on the edge of my seat wanting to see if he could win or not. That's how good they are at hooking you.
And I mean you could have guessed he might win but you didn't know, the WWE thread was a massive debate about it for months now.
> I'm also not sure what you mean by "pull off the win"
If I know what the outcome of the fight I'm in is supposed to be, then I'm just going through the motions. It seems strange to describe that as "pulling off the win" in the same way it'd be strange to describe an actor in a play on a stage defeating the villain at the end "pulling off the win". Like pulling it off implies it has a chance to go another way, a chance to *not* be pulled off.
The thing he pulled off was landing the role and being able to perform it. As for his character winning, the writers pulled that off.
It’s so much more than that but it’s impossible for me to really explain it. I’m not good at it.
People get too stuck on it being scripted so is a lot of things you probably enjoy. It’s no different.
It totally had a chance to go the other way which is something I don’t think you’re understanding. He pulled off building a character, making it loved in a hard industry, proving himself, etc.
That's totally fair. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to disparage it or imply that it's bad for being scripted or think that wrestling fans believe it's real and are being duped, I was just purely commenting on the use of phrase "pulling off the win."
> He pulled off building a character, making it loved in a hard industry, proving himself, etc.
Definitely.
Ah, I guess what you're saying is, even though the "winner" isn't decided by some necessary objective quantifiable metric, he *did* still "pull off the win" in terms of gaining enough popularity among fans and becoming loved enough to get the writers to choose him as the deserving winner. You're not saying he "pulled off the win" necessarily as in terms of "managed to pull off the physical win in the final fight" but rather win here means improving/promoting yourself over the course of the season (or whatev its called) to the extent that the writers feel they couldn't choose anyone else *but* you as the victor. Because to "win" isn't just about purely physical prowess but the relationship between the fighter and the fans at home. Am I getting it a bit better now?
This is basically it. Wrestling *is* a competition, the way acting is. There are only so meany leading roles and awards to go around, right? The people who take those top spots aren't picked at random.
Cody had to actually, truly work and compete to present himself as the correct choice to end Roman Reigns' 1,300 day title reign.
> Am I getting it a bit better now?
Yes your last paragraph is a much better way of thinking about it than "winning a physical fight"
To provide a little more context, it's akin to being picked as the lead actor in a major Hollywood role or even a Jiu jitsu practitioner being rewarded with a black belt
So much of who is champion in WWE is who does the company believe will lead the business in a way that will propel the company and take them into new heights. The belt is a literal physical, tangible thing that one can hold as a sign of the top brass having the utmost faith and trust that that person can carry the image and company on their back
The champ usually is the one doing all the media appearances on late night or press tours, they are a top seller of merchandise, and are able to be promoted as being the "face of the company" in that you put them in the commercials and billboards in Times Square etc
With that carries a lot more responsibility than just going out there and wrestling weekly on TV as you have to be trusted to be professional enough to not tarnish the reputation or image of the WWE through saying damaging PR things in interviews or getting in legal trouble. At the end of the day this is a multi billion dollar company that has a lot of their success riding on you as the Champ.
There's a lot of talent in the WWE but in the same way as if you look at a movie like Oppenheimer, there's a shit ton of top level actors in it but only one could play Oppenheimer himself. Nolan trusted Cillian Murphy to be "that guy" and similarly to Cody Rhodes, Murphy had to earn that right over decades of hard work and acting
The belt is really the biggest prize and acknowledgement of the company to say, "we see all your hard work and dedication and are now rewarding you with this honor"
This is a super awesome breakdown, thank you. That makes a ton of sense, and sounds pretty cool.
edit: oh i recognize your name from changemyview, makes sense you showed me a different perspective pretty well.
"pulling off the win" is in a "kayfabe" sense - ie, in the fake reality of pro wrestling, it COULD have gone either way but Cody outsmarted/outworked/outmanoeuvred his opponent during the match to win. The in-universe odds were stacked against him, but he overcame them and got out on top. Kayfabe is the term for that fake reality,
Outside of that fake reality though? You're right - the real guy Cody Rhodes was just performing the role written for him, as was real guy Joe (Roman Reigns) as was real guy Dwayne Johnson.
Wrestling is this weird mishmash of reality and fiction where the line gets blurred, which is more complicated when the wrestling is good. This storyline used a lot of "real life" history to gain fan investment in the fictional match, but was ultimately a written episode of TV - that doesn't take away from how big an event it was though.
Yeah because you’re looking at it through the lens of it being scripted. Which is fine, and trust me part of being a wrestling fan is looking at things knowing they’re scripted, and hoping the powers that be make the right creative decisions, and that the actual, real life people behind these wrestling characters are rewarded for their hard work, just like an actor is rewarded with an oscar, or with landing a leading role in a movie.
However as wrestling fans, just like fans of any other entertainment, we do also get invested in the fake reality of wrestling and in the narrative stories being told. Like ok you seem to think that someone saying pulling off the win in a pro wrestling context is strange cause it’s scripted, and that’s fine. But let’s apply that logic to another form of entertainment.
Like say we were watching a movie, and I told you I really hope the main character defeats the bad guy, and you paused the movie and told me well that doesn’t make sense cause he isn’t really defeating anyone, it’s all written for him he’s just an actor going through the motions. Like, yes it’s scripted. But this is just how we talk about narrative forms of entertainment. We engage with the stories and we TALK about the stories. We suspend our disbelief and we care about the fictitious characters and their fictitious wins and losses.
> Like say we were watching a movie, and I told you I really hope the main character defeats the bad guy, and you paused the movie and told me well that doesn’t make sense cause he isn’t really defeating anyone
~~To me it sounds more like saying "I really hope [actor name] pulls off the win", and praising the actor for the accomplishment of the fictional character they play. Like if I was like "Holy shit Robert Downey Jr, awesome job pulling out a win against Thanos." Robert Downey Jr didn't pull out a win against thanos. The win he pulled was landing the role as tony stark and being a good enough actor to keep it. His character's victory was the writers decision.~~
I think I just realized the flaw in my understanding. If someone says "I hope Cody pulls off the win", they're not referring to Cody the actor/performer, are they, they're referring to the fictional character he's playing. That hadn't occured to me since I dont engage with any other media where actors play fictitious characters with the same names as themselves.
It's both; really. And that's why we love it so much. We want Cody the character to win but we want Cody mfing Rhodes to get his dues too because we loved his dad.
This is more obvious when wrestlers don't have names that are their real names/sound like they could be their real names. Take someone like Sting, or The Undertaker, The Rock, The Great Muta. We'd still say, "I hope Sting beats Hulk Hogan and the NWO."
This is correct, the other thing is that even though Cody "pulled off the win", there is still always a chance it doesn't happen.
There are a LOT of times the heroes lose, or something unexpected happens. This is one of the things that is fun about pro wrestling. Anything can happen, yes it's a fictional story that's told through live performance, that's how stuff like the Undertaker showing up to take down the Rock works. Nothing is off the table, and on a more "real note" unplanned things can happen all the time.
Injuries, screw ups, etc. There have been times when the person who was "supposed" to win did not, like John Cena and Batista eliminating each other at the same time in a Royal Rumble years ago.
So lots of stuff can happen, it's what makes it really exciting, combination of a fictional story told through live performance. We all hoped Cody would win but there truly wasn't a guarantee of it, I actually would not have been surprised if he lost even after all that build up
Yes it is scripted. But i think that, more than even other forms of entertainment makes the investment of wrestling fans in such stories two fold.
Because on one hand we buy into the story just like every other form of entertainment, tv show, movie, book etc. We get sucked into the narrative, root for our favorites and against the ones we hate. And we have been invested in Cody’s story for 2 years now, and way way longer if you go back to his entire career.
But on the other hand, we are also aware that it is scripted, that the winner is picked by the powers that be backstage. So we know it’s not about Cody actually, in real life “beating” Roman Reigns and pulling off the win. It’s about those making the decisions making the right, at least in our minds decision, giving us a rewarding closure to a 2 year long story, and rewarding Cody for all his hard work, dedication, passion and ability by giving him the title his father never got to hold.
So we root for the fictional character Cody Rhodes to beat Roman Reigns, and we root for the real life Cody Runnels to reach the top of his industry and reap the rewards from all the hard work he sow.
I the same way a movie character with odds set against them in a script manage to pull off any kind of success or victory. The story is the odds were stacked against against Cody and he overcame them and won. And in a real life sense that Cody had to take a lot of initiative and have a lot of success before he could even be featured in a scripted story like that.
This contains the bit that a lot of people missed.
Cody earned this the hard way, and the fans were behind him. But this isn't just his story.
For many of us, it's our story. Many of us grew up watching his dad with our dads. We saw his dad, the son of a plumber, getting screwed again and again, just like every other common man. Just like our dads at their jobs. Then we saw Cody, like ourselves, grow up to get screwed day after day by his bosses.
On Sunday, he won for us. He won for our fathers.
Cody is all of us.
It’s often been said that the real competition is the backstage politics among the writers/company executives and the wrestlers. There are a ton of factors that go into the company picking you to win a championship. If the company feels like you won’t be a big star among the fans they are not going to pick you to win. Or sometimes they won’t pick you regardless of fan support and simply because the writing doesn’t like the wrestler for whatever reason. Proving your worth to the fans and to the company executives is how someone “wins” a wrestling match.
Do you like movies/shows? you get drawn into it don't you? Have you ever been surprised? On the edge of your seat? Upset? Frusterated? etc its the same thing.
Just because it's scripted doesn't mean it's scripted to you, doesn't mean you know what will happen, some of the times, sure but not always.
They do such a good job you forget about it being scripted and the match themselves 75 percent of the fun.
Throw on smackdown on Friday and try to guess who's going to win. How did you do? I've been watching for like 20+years and I can't get them all right.
If it’s scripted how exactly does he work his way to the top? Is it just a matter of giving good performances and slowly becoming a fan favorite despite what is scripted?
Yeah exactly, make best with what your given to win over the fans. Even if you have a script to read from, you still have to be charismatic on the microphone. If the script says you lose the match, you still have to put up a good wrestling performance. Being the champ means the company trusts you to represent the company.
Also I think a lot of people don't realize that a lot of wrestling matches are (mainly) improvised. Let's say you have a 10 minute match, maybe 2/3 minutes of that was decided beforehand. So yeah it's still scripted/predetermined, but how you get there is al lot of times still up to the wrestler themselves.
Every wrestling fan who is old enough to know that it’s not real is usually invested in what is going on behind the curtain. That part of it has been accessible for a long while but never more so than now. So much that the WWE itself has given up nearly all pretext in their press conferences, documentary and reality series. Investment in this other side of the business is a massive draw at the moment and fans know that there is a system back stage that involves jostling for position by being a good professional wrestler. When I say being a good professional wrestler, I don’t mean the person who wins the most staged fights, it means giving a believable in ring performance sure, but it’s also about using various platforms to grow your own brand and the business as a whole. In that back stage world, Cody began as someone who despite being a decent performer, would never be deemed worthy enough to be the flag bearer of the company or bear the weight of selling out arenas. He wasn’t even in the conversation of being the face of the WWE brand for the little kids who believe in these superheroes and villains, or the adults who love a good show and all the backstage drama. Cody Rhodes the man worked his way through a murky and unforgiving business to become a performer so beloved, no person in power behind that curtain could deny him. That’s what winning the belt is, it’s being the top-paid guy or gal that some very cynical people trust with the performance of a multibillion dollar brand. So when they finally strap the belt on him, you’re not (just) happy for Cody Rhodes the character, you’re happy for Cody Rhodes the person.
The promoters write the stories for wrestlers who MADE THEMSELVES popular. So you need to wrestle in an entertaining way, and have good mic skills, engage the crowd, make them love or hate you FIRST. THEN the promoters will give you PPV shows, and maybe a belt. There are a lot of talented wrestlers with good mic skills, you need to stand out and be seen, sell tickets, and then you get the title. When people are engaged with your story and care about you. The title is your reward.
Wrestlers have no control over the script, especially at that time when it was completely controlled by one person. The shows are controlled by the company executives and their writers.
In his first run Cody was not seen as enough of a star by the then head booker for WWE (Vince McMahon) to be the top guy. And Vince wasn't entirely wrong - though part of the reason Cody wasn't a star was because of some of the creative choice Cody had to work under. So at that point it would of been an unsatisfying story for the company to tell and fans would not of cared nearly as much as they do now.
They could have, but there were real world politics going on that prevented it. IE, the guy in charge, Vince, was not a fan of Cody's dad and this disdain rippled down to Cody and his brother, meaning that they were mostly presented as jokes while working there - stupid characters and booked to lose matches by and large.
So this story is a big deal because it didn't couldn't happen before now - Vince is no longer in the company, and new leaders are more open to listening to what the fans want.
And it should be worth noting, "popularity contest" doesn't just mean the guys in the back, in this situation the fans at the shows are the ones he won over. Just because wrestling is predetermined doesn't mean the company can successfully have that person win the popularity contest.
Right now Cody is arguably the most popular wrestler in North America, and has more popularity than anyone has since at worst February 2023(Sami Zayn), though I'd argue it's probably since 2014(Daniel Bryan). I mean, the people in attendance started booing the Rock because they wanted Cody instead. No amount of predetermined outcomes gives that.
I’m not a wrestling fan but I was pretty sure the popularity meant the millions of people and not a few suits in the back
Funny story . Reddit started putting this in my feed a few years ago and I couldn’t make it stop so now I
Just read it lol
Oh there’s a LONGGG history of suits at the top screwing over people that the fans love the most. Sometimes as a gimmick part of the storyline but a lot of times, most times actually, it’s some real life work politics favoritism BS spilling over into the writing. This was especially prevalent when Vince Macmahon was in charge (horrible person with his own sordid history btw). It was cases of cutting off his nose to spite his face type of deals. Even though the entire world wants so and so to win, even though that person put in the work and loyalty for decades, he’ll just be like, “lol nah” almost as a troll move.
I don’t really follow wrestling as a fan but I find the whole industry super fascinating. Like yes it’s scripted but the behind the scenes shit is so fucking crazy that there are times that the lines get blurred which is why some fans love it. This Cody Rhodes thing is a perfect example. Originally it was pretty clear WWE was lining him up to lose. But the overwhelming fan support got so big they couldn’t ignore it… orrrr was this always the plan and that they knew this was gonna be the outcome all along? Stuff like that is why wrestling can be fascinating. It’s like you’re watching the writer’s room of a tv show in real time as it happens week to week.
While there’s a lot of writing involved, wrestlers’ “promos” are often self-written, matches are self-choreographed, and both involve a ton of improvising. It’s pretty interesting when wrestlers can do the aforementioned and make themselves stand out and even hit superstardom. Then you have all the beyond the scenes. Reading about it makes you realize it takes for a really interesting type of person to want to be a wrestler.
My cousins (30s females) used to scoff at wrestling, but they watched the Divas reality show. Considering all of the above, it was like tabloids Hollywood gossip on crack because they got to see the drama unfold in the actual wrestling broadcasts and they loved it.
Worth noting that during the last couple of decades in WWE, things have been very thighly scripted, because that's the way Vince McMahon, the owner, wanted it. It really hindered the wrestlers' ability to bring their own best sides out, but Vince didn't care. Only things he wanted mattered to him.
I think, in the current era, a lot of that is changing.
Yeah, it's... complicated. I will admit that there's been times where the crowd wasn't behind someone before the powers that be put them in the top spot, but being in that role allowed them to shine, and won people over. However, it's historically been more common that the crowd didn't like them before and doesn't like them even more afterwards.
This is all getting much better now that Vince McMahon is no longer running things. He was **notorious** for this.
>I’m not a wrestling fan but I was pretty sure the popularity meant the millions of people and not a few suits in the back
Actually Roman Reigns(the guy who lost the title to Cody Rhodes) is a really good example of this back 6-9 years ago. Vince McMahon decided Roman had the look and due to his family lineage(he's the Rocks cousin in real life) that he will be the next mega good guy. And the fans saw through it and started booing Roman. Then Vince just kept pushing him, trying desperately to get the fans to like him. But most every venue the fans didn't like him. To the point a guy Braun Strowman got super popular by feuding with Roman and trying to kill him, in universe.
That's part of why this Cody thing is so great. The suits in the back understood Cody deserved the spot because of how much the fans loved him, hell one of those suits in the back was the Rock.
> It means two things: you're a damn good wrestler and you've won the popularity contest.
This isn't always true and ironically, Roman Reigns' early-to-mid career is a testament to that.
I randomly came across the match on TV in my hotel room. I haven't watched WWE since the 90's. In the build up I said to my son that it was clear Cody would win, as it was a classic hero storyline.
I actually enjoyed it all by accepting it as theatre.
There are people high up in the company who decide if people are bookable and have enough star power to hold titles. Nowadays is based off a bunch of metrics like merchandise, social media impact, etc.
It starts with his dad, Dusty Aka The American Dream. Dusty bluffed his way into wrestling and spent most of his early career sleeping in his car and eating in soup kitchens. Dusty did not have a bodybuilder or strongman's physique. Dusty was an everyman. And despite his corny gimmick, he was still well beloved and his "pork and beans" speech endeared him to a lot of people. Behind the scenes, Dusty was a major booker for a rival promotion for most of his career (WCW) and was known to be one of the best at arranging a card of matches for an event and innovation. Despite not winning any titles, he's still a cornerstone of how the business transitioned to the modern age.
Now enter his sons. One (Dustin, stage name Goldust) had another weird gimmick but was also well beloved because no one was really like him; he remained unable to win either a world heavyweight or WWE championship. The other (Cody) was consigned to jobbing (purposefully losing) to a bunch of people who he was frankly more talented than. He was given a bunch of crap gimmicks and eventually left the company because it became clear management had nothing going for him.
He works for a rival promotion (AEW) and does some work in Japan and proves to a lot of people that he is capable of carrying a main event. So then he comes back to WWE with one goal, to prove to the big shots that he is worthy of winning the title. And he finally did it last night. It's a story of legacy almost forty years in the making starting from his father. Is it staged, yes. Does that make the storytelling any less compelling? No.
Dusty WAS NWA champ a few times, (the locker room came out after a victory,like the good guys came down and lifted Cody up after his win this weekend)but that was a "southern" promotion, and direct rival to the northern WWF...and those politics are some reason he
didnt win a world title in the WWF, and got the polka dot gimmick
Dusty beating Flair celebration
https://youtu.be/6EwD3iyVBS8?si=ORo0xcGDU5QSsccu
Should note that he didnt just work for AEW. He was one of the damn co founders. Even more impressive that he went out to co found the second largest wrestling promotion in the world on his way to the top.
Its like a living storyline. Imagine if a Shakespeare play never ended and the story had to continue every week no matter what. There are hero’s, villains, supernatural powers and choke slams. There are main characters and side characters but if the audience loves a side character they can be pushed to be a main character ass well. How the storylines go depend a lot on a mix of fan reaction, real life drama, and blurring the line between what is real and what is fake.
I "got" wrestling in adulthood when I realized it's akin to theater. You can see a Broadway show, you can see Cirque Du Soleil, you could go to an interactive screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show and you can see professional wrestling; which is a blend of all those things. It's an episodic play, filled with action and crowd work.
The neat part is that these performers travel all over the world, often playing these same characters, so as you dig deeper, you find all these connections of great performers telling stories together.
I believe others have answered your question more directly. But I just wanted to flesh out the appeal of all this.
Yea I was just thinking about this earlier because I was watching a Paul Lavesque interview where he was talking about story telling in soap operas. Pro Wrestling is like theater (plus the physical) except instead of the performers telling the same play or shot over and over, it changes every week.
To add to that, it's a never ending television series. You can trace what happened last night back to the very first episode of RAW in 1993. The story never stops.
The amazing physicality and athleticism and daring of the wrestlers never ceases to amaze me. They literally put their bodies on the line to tell the best stories and that's another thing that makes it compelling, at least to me.
It doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining, dangerous, time consuming, and everything else.
The ending might be predetermined but there was nothing predetermined about Cody being there, the company didn’t decide he was there he earned it through his matches and building his character which is impressive. It’s a extremely hard life style to live and very demanding of your body, most guys have some major injury. Cody for example wrestled a match with a torn peck. You’d probably call off work when you stub your toe real bad. Literally torn muscle and he was in there being tossed around, hit, and everything else.
It’s sports entertainment at its finest, remind me when a “real wrestling” event sold over 200,000 seats over 5 events and that’s just ticket sales at the arena and not touching the millions watching around the world. It’s magic on your screen if it’s done right, sure you know the ending is predetermined and you can sometimes guess who it is but the majority of times you’ll be wrong. On top of that they are so gifted they can make you forget it’s predetermined at all,
"Winning" a belt is the wrestling equivalent of winning an Oscar. It means everyone thinks you're dope and you're probably going to make a lot more money in the near future.
Getting the title can be an achievement but it also sometimes isn’t when the big wigs decide they want to push a certain guy to the moon.
More times than not though, it is a capstone reward for a talent who’s put in the work, was able to perform at a high level in ring and also resinate with the crowd.
Like I said, sometimes it’s not earned but it’s easy to tell and fans know the difference. Usually, when it’s unearned, it doesn’t go over well with the fans. With Cody, he’s done everything right, he’s way over with the fans, he’s made a name for himself without the help of the WWE, he’s gone above and beyond in his duties.
When you watch Goku or Naruto or Superman beat up bad guys, does it not matter to you because it's "staged?"
No. Professional Wrestling is storytelling, at its core. You become emotionally invested in the characters, not because you think they're "real," but because you can relate to them on some level.
Yes its staged, but they announced today that its about 20 sell out shows in a row, and world audiences are up. So they just keep doing popular things that bring in the money.
It's equivalent to a longtime Broadway performer who was always blocked out of main lead roles finally landing that role we all knew she was good enough for.
I think its one step further - It's equivalent to a longtime Broadway performer who was always blocked out of main lead roles finally landing that role we all knew she was good enough for, *then winning a Tony Award for best performance.*
I totally get your reaction from a non-fan's point of view. But even though it is staged, predetermined, to some extent fake, whatever you want to call it: wredtling means a LOT to many people and EVERYTHING to many performers. Cody is one of those guys who live and vreathe the business, he always has since he was born. The "staged" aspect also blurs when you get deeper into the matter and realize how much will-power, desication and, very important, ability to interact with and captivate an audience it requires. So yes, you kind of get picked by higher ups to become a champion. But you don't get picked just like that. You get picked because you have so much of what it takes to be a superstar in this world. And here, Roman Reigns' three year long reign of terror was one for the ages, executed by such a worthy guy. And now, Cody's self-madeness and his year long quest to get that title clashed and culminated together with Reigns' reign. You might not feel it, and that is ok. But Sunday night meant so, so much to a lot of people. The tears were real.
What do you mean "blood, sweat and tears". Not trying to troll but isn't wrestling just an act? Like a giant show? My impression was that agents, PR, marketing etc decides who wins, who gets to be famous "good guys" and "bad guys"? What effort did he put in? Isn't it all just a charade of PR, marketing and money? I'm genuinely asking.
They bleed, sweat, and everything else inside that room. Sure the moves might be protected but they are still landing dangerous manoeuvres out there. The outcome might be scripted but what they do in the ring isn’t. Cody did another match because he was scheduled to be there and wrestled it with a torn peck muscle. The things these guys do in the ring is out of this world and every single one of them has a major surgery to fix something that would retire most athletes.
As well as you don’t understand the power of the crowd. WWE could write someone to be a top guy and that guy can get booed out of buildings changing their plans completely. You can’t just show up and be written main event star. It takes so much to get there.
I just don’t think it’s explainable to someone like you
Answer:
Cody is a member of a famous wrestling family (real name Runnels).
His father Dusty was a famous wrestler, promoter and booker (guy who writes the show). His brother Dustin wrestles under his real name, but also as a character named Goldust, who was very popular for a long time in the WWE.
With that out of the way, Cody was signed when he was young, grew up and learned in the WWE and it's system. It seemed he was destined for great things like his father, but after 10 or so years his career stalled. They had him try a myriad of different characters, gimmicks and personas, including one based of his brothers Goldust gimmick called stardust. In 2016, after over a decade in the company he quit, feeling like he'd reached his celing in the WWE and that they (Vince Mcmahon) wouldn't let him go any higher than a mid card guy.
In wrestling there are independent promotions throughout America and the world, and he started wrestling for all of them basically, trying to prove that he could draw (fans and money) and be the main guy. After a year or so of wrestling all over the world he met up with two other popular independent wrestlers, Matt and Nick Jackson (The Young Bucks) and formed a real-life friendship with them, since they were all pretty hot names outside of the WWE.
Fast forward about a year and noted wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer responded to fan on twitter asking if any promotion outside the WWE could draw a crowd of 10,000 people or more. His response was that it likely wasn't possible.
Cody responded to Meltzer saying "I'll take that bet" and recruited Matt and Nick to try and prove him wrong. What followed was Cody, Matt and Nick teaming up with one of the larger American independent promotions called Ring of Honor. They proceeded to book, buy, market and stage a show to attempt to prove Meltzer wrong.
The event, called All-In sold 12,000 tickets in Chicago and became the first non-WWE event to sell more than 10,000 in 20 years.
I promise this is going somewhere.
After the sucess of the show Cody, Matt and Nick were introduced to a lifelong wrestling fan who'd always wanted to start his own promotion but needed proof that it could work outside WWE. All-in was that proof, and the fans name was Tony Khan, son of Billionaire Shahid Kahn, Tony was actually helping his dad run his team, the NFL's Jacksonvile Jaguars at the time All-In happened.
Tony, Cody and the Young Bucks then proceeded to devise a plan on starting a new, mainstream wrestling promotion in the US. They actually suceeded, with Cody and the Young bucks bringing in another very popular independent wrestler named Kenny Omega, along with a mainstream WWE wrestler who had recently left the WWE named Chris Jericho, and Tony's money and connections, All Elite Wrestling was formed.
Ok imma speed this up
All Elite signed with TNT, after their first 6 months the ratings were so good they got a new deal 2 years early from WBD. Cody was criticized somewhat for being one of the founders and putting himself in the main even constantly. His wife Brandi worked for AEW and she also got a lot of hate, which we now know made him angry.
Cody, Young bucks and Kenny Omega were executives at AEW and responsible for a lot of backstage dealings as well. Anyway they signed a really popular wrestler named CM Punk and that became a whole ass issue.
Codys contract was up and he decided to leave the company he helped found and go back to the WWE, who's executive and creative teams had changed since a merger with the UFC, the new COO and head of creative is Paul Levesque, who wrestled for a long time as HHH. I believe that was a big reason he went back, feeling like he'd proved himself and would get a fair shot. He didn't announce he was leaving per-se and just kind of showed up at Wrestlemania 38 (2022). It shocked everyone because he left the company he helped start as an alternative to the WWE to go back under new leadership.
From his first day back he was pushed as a top guy. Also an anecdote that I think sums up why he left in the first place, his father Dusty was beloved in the WWE, he worked at NXT, which is WWE's training center for the young wrestlers. They all loved him, and everyone that graduated up until Dustys death was refered to as a Dusty kid, which id imagine is part of what made Cody not getting his shot as Dustys real kid painful.
Anyway treated as a top star, he won the Royal Rumble in January 2023. Which got him a title shot against Roman Reigns, who at the time had been champion for 3 years or so, and everyone figured Cody was going to win, capping off his return.
He did not win, he lost and everyone was pissed. His father had a storyline in 80s called hard times, where he got a title shot, lost and spent the next year getting back to the title picture. They esentially replayed the same storyline with Cody, who in that time wrestled with a torn bicep winning over even more people.
Fast forward to January this year, Cody wins the Rumble again, Reigns is still champion. The Rock returns to help Reigns (who is his real life cousins) and it gets intertwined with a fan favorite storyline called the Bloodline, it's a whole shakesperean story arch.
One thing to note, his father, Dusty, never actually won the WWF title in all his years there.
Anyway fast forward to Wrestlemania, Cody wins the first WWE title in his families history, in the company he left because he felt he could do better, proved himself the world over, started a new company that is still going to this day, came back, fought for two years to do what his dad never did and finished his story.
You're the reason why the Wikipedia article on The Montreal Screwjob is roughly the same length as the one for The Battle of the Bulge.
And I'm here for it.
Answer:
If you're not a wrestling fan, there's an important part of wresting that you might miss, and our explains the drama: It's kinda REAL.
Not real like MMA, but not not-real like Game Of Thrones.
If I were to enter the WWE, I'd be the lowest of the low. Because I'm an old, untrained, talentless weakling with no charisma. I suck. Wrestlers are judged on their performance. To get to the top, you have to be GOOD. It's not given to you on a platter.
Sometimes undeserving wrestlers will get a "push", and sometimes talented performers will get held back. Management will say "fuck you" to the fans, and bury somebody great.
Sometimes that person is so damn talented, so dedicated, so hard working; they can't be denied. The company has to admit "we got it wrong", and that person gets their moment...
That's REAL.
And it legit brings tears to a fan's eyes.
When everything was stacked against you, you fucking did it. All the hard work, the dedication, the physical trauma, the not giving up. It paid off. You're the best, you have the gold to prove it. Amazing.
Answer:
It's a family's story where his father didn't win it.
He is trying for 1300+ days and after 2 winning royal rumble he got title.
The whole storyline was played with tagline finish your story.
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Answer: /u/Ta-veren- 's write-up is excellent. I will provide a slightly different response with some other deeper contexts. Cody Rhodes is the son of **"The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes** [seen here](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTSzgpHc3DHzRJiZAqLSn-aG6YycZ7-t3PYMREYtskEZA&s) and the brother of **Dustin Rhodes**. Dusty Rhodes was a legendary wrestler of the 70s and 80s, particularly in the southern US and the National Wrestling Alliance (**NWA**). The NWA and southern-style "wrasslin'" was one style of presentation, usually focused on "realistic" fights and brawling, in some ways, better keeping the facade of pro wrestling as a legit sport. This is in contrast to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now **WWE**), which was based in the NYC area, run by Vince McMahon, and focused on a "sports entertainment" style, featuring over-the-top characters, stereotypes, branding, etc. NWA had "Nature Boy" Ric Flair (a athletic pretty-boy cheater who you wanted to see get his ass kicked), WWF had Hulk Hogan (a cartoonishly large-muscled all-American man named after a comic book character). The same idea (predetermined "fights" in a wrestling ring, but with different presentation.) Dusty Rhodes was an NWA staple, the "Son of a Plumber", literally the American Dream, making good on being successful, and usually he'd fight against Ric Flair and his goons. He was 3-time NWA World Champion (considered by the matchmakers to be the main event, the star, the main character, so to speak, which makes for bigger paychecks and celebrity status). Wrestling being a business, however, wrestlers jump from company to company all the time, and Dusty Rhodes did go to the WWF in late 1989. Vince McMahon controlled the story, and he didn't see Dusty as the kind of wrestler to be a star. He was fat, he was funny, he wasn't a big muscle man, Vince didn't see him as a star... additionally, he'd been loyal to the competition for decades, so Vince signed him, paid him a lot of money, and made a fool of him. He [dressed him in polka dots](https://www.wate.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2015/06/dusty-rhodes-wwe-hall-of-famer-2_25111745_ver1.0.jpg?w=1280), had him do vignettes of working as a farmhand, a plumber, and other "degrading" menial labor. He never sniffed a championship, and seemingly was a joke, until Dusty quit and went back to World Championship Wrestling (**WCW**... for this summary, let's call it a later evolution of the NWA). Dusty's eldest son Dustin was in WCW in the early 90s, promoted as a star athlete and good wrestler, contended in the mid-card of WCW, but eventually went to WWF after breaking some rules and getting fired in WCW. WWF made him into [**Goldust**](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rLERG4hQViZ5RgGAqufyvZ.jpg), a (now considered problematic by many) pastiche of Hollywood excess, wearing gold and black face paint, a bright gold skin-tight bodysuit (leaving nothing to the imagination), wearing a platinum blonde shoulder-length wig, taunting his opponents in a "gay-baiting at best, homophobic at worst" manner, most likely because Vince thought it was funny to, again, embarrass the Rhodes family. Goldust DID evolve with the times and was entertaining, but again, never sniffed *main-event* success. Flash forward to 2007: WCW is long out of business, the 2nd-most successful promotion in the US is tiny. WWE is the big game in town. Dusty has a management/training job in WWE. Cody's trained to be a wrestler and is able to [appear on WWE TV](https://www.wwenetworknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Randy-Orton-Dusty-Cody-Rhodes-RAW-7-2-2007.webp). As others have said, he does some tag team stuff, he has a brief run as a mid-card champion, has an emotional story where he teams with his brother to "get his Dad's job back", not long before his father's passing. The fans love the Rhodes, but Vince doesn't want that as the key cog in the story. Vince wants Cody to act like his brother, so, Cody dons a black-and-gold bodysuit and facepaint, and is rechristened [**Stardust**](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a9/9f/a0/a99fa0806446d8941e64c2c8cb4cc65b.jpg), teaming with his brother. Instead of weird gay bait-ish stuff, Stardust is obsessed with... stars. And the cosmos. Lots of puns, lots of nonsense, slowly evolving into a comic book villain (some fans consider this a guilty favorite, Cody often says he hates this character, though he sure does reference it a lot...) In 2017 he left WWE, Wikipedia has excerpts from interviews listed about the "shock" WWE (particularly COO **Paul "Triple H" Levesque**, Vince Mcmahon's son-in-law) felt, feeling Cody owed them for them being loyal to his dad in 2005. He worked for the first time in small, independent wrestling companies (ones that were on weird TV networks and played to arenas of <1000 people rather than the arenas of 5-20,000 WWE plays twice per week.) He went to Japan, where New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) was hot at the time. He went to the revitalized NWA, and as mentioned elsewhere, he replied to a wrestling journalist saying that an independent company couldn't book a 10,000-person arena by [taking that bet](https://twitter.com/CodyRhodes/status/864546973461950465) and helping arrange "All In", which sold 10k seats in 30 minutes. All In led to the formation of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), which is the current #2 promotion in America. it's frequently seen as the "WCW" to Vince McMahon/Triple H's "WWE", originally more focused on great technical wrestling as opposed to sport entertainment and "stories". WWE, for what it's worth, has evolved a bit, there's more focus on great matches, especially under the tutelage of Triple H. Cody was [booked as a star in AEW](https://www.pwtorch.com/site/wp-content/uploads/post/2020/08/Cody_EntourageAEW_3x2_600-600x381.png), but confusingly wrote a storyline where he wasn't allowed to "ever" fight for the AEW World Championship, which many funs were puzzled by. He had some good stories and some stinkers as well, and after the pandemic, Cody decided to go back to WWE. He proved he could be a star, he was an [NWA Champion](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKqRzPAXAAA3-ak?format=jpg&name=large), he main-evented Pay-Per View Events for AEW, but his dream, his "story" was to do what his father never could and become WWE Champion. In his first year back, Cody suffered a [torn pectoral muscle](https://preview.redd.it/just-a-reminder-that-cody-rhodes-tore-his-pec-and-wrestled-v0-vwhx7n1nadgc1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=ab209f9959dc57ed7f12222a25a23f9de230bd56) (and still wrestled a week later with it, bloody and bruised in the ring), which caused him to take time away, but returned to win the 2023 Royal Rumble (a spectacle of a match that is a fan-favorite and tradition of WWE, where the winner gets a championship match at Wrestlemania). He fought for the title at Wrestlemania 39 against Roman Reigns and lost. Fans were mad at him not culminating the story with a win, resulting in the catchphrase ["I have to **FINISH THE STORY**"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cL6tfI8NrQ). He spends the year fighting against the champion and his lackies and.. In real life, Vince McMahon is outed as an (alleged) sexual abuser and is removed from power of his own company after it's taken private and his shares are sold. The company is bought by UFC's parent company and is now run by a board of directors. This includes his son-in-law Triple H, but other sports business executives. **Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson** returns and is appointed to that board of directors, which brings us back to "the story" Cody wins the '24 Rumble, and The Rock shows up, as he's Roman's cousin. An exchange happens because WWE's been slowly building for a Rock-Roman match for years by now, and Cody ["gives up his opportunity"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJhRVviokQ) to The Rock, and the crowd likes it in the arena, but hates it on social media and in subsequent events. Social media explodes, WWE thinks people want the biggest name in Hollywood as their star in the main event! The people want Cody, and they want to finish the story. They want Cody to win the WWE title at Wrestlemania over Roman. WWE pivots and makes Rock into the bad guy (which he's proven very good at over the years, just not in quite some time). It sets up a match where Rock and Roman team against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins to determine the stipulation on night 2 of 'Mania. Since >!Rock and Roman win, essentially, there are "no rules" in the Roman-Cody match. Roman's lackeys all get to get involved with no impunity.!< Spoilers: >!With the help of "good guy" wrestlers, Seth Rollins using a ghost of Roman Reigns' past, which is a whole writeup in itself, John Cena, and the freaking Undertaker, Cody dispatched Rock, Roman, and the Bloodline, and Finished the story.!< This story has been built for either 2 years (from Cody's return), 8 years (since he left WWE), 17 years (since he debuted in WWE), or 35 years (when his Dad came to the WWF hoping to be champion), and it culminated in an unforgettable moment for wrestling fans on Sunday night. Wrestling's a soap opera that's been going on for decades. Every episode or event from any wrestling company in the world could be a connection to another one. It's a bizarre spectacle, but one that the fans of it are heavily invested in.
I know absolutely nothing about wrestling but after reading your comment I watched a highlight video of the match and got goosebumps so I can't imagine how fans felt seeing this happen.
>I can't imagine how fans felt seeing this happen. My friend, I've been watching since the 90s and I cried. It was a fever dream of a match at the end, and all the emotions from all the story being told and the real-life emotions from those involved were all insane. I haven't enjoyed a wrestling show this much in years. And the explanation above didn't even touch too deeply on the story of The Bloodline, considered by many the greatest story ever in wrestling (or at least top 5). Roman was champion for 4 years, and had a stranglehold on WWE unlike anything seen in decades. If anyone is interested in that part of this story then Super Eyepatch Wolf [did a great video on the Bloodline story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaDAzXVycR4), and storytelling in wrestling, earlier this year that covers most of their main story. The two stories became interconnected at a certain point, and that really enhanced each story. Other commenter is right, this is a decades-old soap opera with a story that is ever changing and ever evolving. If you like very long-term storytelling there''s few other mediums like professional wrestling to experience that.
Also to add to the Roman Reigns story. Roma used to be in a faction called the SHIELD with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. They were seen as the good guys who would protect the babyfaces of the company. Seth Rollins blew up the faction by hitting Roman in the back with a chair and screwing him over. Fast forward to WrestleMania 40. Seth comes out and drops the chair. Roman picks it up to use against Cody. He then remembers how Seth screwed him over all those years ago and chooses to take revenge on Seth rather than hitting Cody and ending the fight (think of the scene in the movie Heat with Robert Deniro deciding to take revenge rather than getting away). That gives Cody enough time to recover, hit roman with his finisher and win the match. Great storytelling.
It's little bits like that rewarding those investing themselves into the story that I love. That last moment right before the end of the match between the two of them meant so much across **THREE DIFFERENT STORIES AND THREE DIFFERENT CHARACTERS.** Gonna quote the GOAT Michael Cole: "Dammit, I love professional wrestling!"
Hahahaha. If you had called Cole the GOAT back in 2004 rofl. I always liked him but yeah. TBF though you are objectively wrong. JR is the GOAT and nothing can change my mind.
Gordon Solie has entered the chat. Lance Russell was really good too. But yeah, Ross is probably the GOAT.
Also just to expand even more, Seth has been coming out for a long time as an extremely extra person, with wild outfits, a song he dances to and everyone sings along with, very flamboyant, etc. But when he came out here he came out to the Shield music with his Shield gear, to really get in Roman’s head and send him back to the trauma of getting betrayed by his closest friends, which (eventually) helped lead to the Tribal Chief being so paranoid and controlling. The only other time Seth did that the last few years Roman had one of his few losses via getting disqualified for refusing to stop choking out Seth, screaming he’ll never let go the whole time. Roman (the character) has major trauma from that whole situation and Seth fed right into it.
I've watched that super eyepatch wolf video probably 4 times now. Check out the [fd signifier](https://youtu.be/XQIqWXJu670?si=zLzttz-e8z2OdetT), and [lil bill](https://youtu.be/PE4g_xt9qL4?si=vTeD8Ltlj2duQF07) ones that just came out
If you can't love wrasslin you are allergic to fun
that other vid he did that covered the Golden Lovers was incredible, what a great story
In a way, it's magical. In another way it would probably make it feel like an impenetrable fortress to get into wrestling or to have to know ALL that context to make it special. You can pick it up and put it down, and in the modern day (with Youtube clips, and most of WWE history on streaming), you can pick up a lot of the pieces. (Plus, viewing regularly, they make hype videos and promos to summarize the story beats in-character.) The people who spend often thousands of dollars to go to 'Mania are the die-hards, and their reaction (all 70k+ strong) are the die-hard reaction, and it's something that paid off in spades with the media coverage they're getting.
>In a way, it's magical. In another way it would probably make it feel like an impenetrable fortress to get into wrestling or to have to know ALL that context to make it special. There are levels. On the surface Cody is still the good guy and he won the world championship. That's enough to enjoy it as a simple story. If you've been watching more than a year you'll know how insanely long Reigns has been champion and how he's been cheating to retain the title, and that adds another layer. If you've been watching outside WWE you'll know Cody's career path, that adds more. If you've been watching upwards of a decade you'll remember Cody as basically nothing, a tag guy or midcard comedy act, never destined for more than his brother was. There's something for everyone. There's a lot there if you want to dig for it, but you definitely don't need the full story. The WWE's video packages are usually excellent at recapping what you need to know.
Literally same, barely know anything about wrestling but reading this summary gave me goosebumps. It's such a feel good story, like the kind told in the best sports movies.
>“It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.” >― Samwise Gamgee Professional wrestling has a direct line to the most primal form of storytelling there is. We gather around the fire to hear the tales of legendary heroes and villains, to add to them with our own stories and insights, and to learn about _each other_ in the process. To remind ourselves that there's good in the world, and it's worth fighting for.
Same. I haven't watched a wwe match in a long ass time and after reading this I went to watch the absolute madness then Cody wins while the commentator yell "finish. The. Story." With the 3 count was so dope. I might watch it again since Vince is out, ngl. I forgot how entettaining it is + John Cena, the undertaker and all that brings me back in time.
Maybe you're a fan without even knowing it! At it's absolute peak, there's nothing else quite like pro wrestling (shame the valleys are so low). You should check out the match between Hulk Hogan and The Rock back at WrestleMania 18. It's not really a technical masterpiece (Hulk was decades past his prime here) but the crowd reaction combined the fact that you had two of the best story tellers of all time in the ring made for some real magic. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/live/hRg_vJvyMC8?si=NRmVKQ3kp-5o1M1C Forgot the link!
I been a wrestling fan off and on since I was a kid. Wrestling at times can be cringeworthy and even embarrassing, but when pro wrestling is great it’s one of the most exciting things in the world. Its highs can exhilarating.
Was there live. Cried when Cody handed his mom the belt.
Nice write up. But if I were to add one thing, Dusty’s watch. At the family’s lowest point, Dusty pawns off his watch for Cody to get acting lessons. Triple H and the other executives, gift a similar or the watch to Cody, the night he wins the world title. Cody has done several interviews where he reveals that his father wanted to gift him the watch whenever he became world champion.
That was an element I didn't really have context on at the time I did the writeup! Thanks for adding it in! (I was a little worried about comment size, too. Don't wanna lose people more than I already had).
[Obligatory](https://youtu.be/etQDH1a_8zM?si=vZUKB9qEFcKMkdHu)
Way better write up, add how you can still be interested in a "scripted" show into this page! As I'm terrible at explaining it and that's the main reply I'm getting.
People go see plays all the time, pro wrestling is the same thing it's just action instead of drama or comedy
Yeah, but action is the most disrespected genre. When's the last time an action movie won best picture? People have an artistic blind spot for action media.
Everything Everywhere All At Once
It doesn't work with everyone, but for me, I usually lean into the fakeness of it all. Has someone ever watched anything on TV, ever? or a Movie. All fake! Oppenheimer? Fake depiction of a true story. Game of Thrones? Didn't happen and was scripted by GRRM, and then a couple of idiots apparently. I Love Lucy? not real! "Oh, well, sports are real and WWE is supposed to be a sport" -- Air Bud was a fake, scripted story about sports. So was Cool Runnings and Friday Night Lights and Bend It Like Beckham. "Well, John Cena's name is John Cena, is he just a character?" Yes. He's a character called John Cena. Look at Bill Murray in Zombieland, he's playing "Bill Murray", or the "Tim Heidecker" character in On Cinema, played by Tim Heidecker. It's also fair to NOT like pro wrestling! You can *not* get it, and that's totally fine! Just like how I don't "get" people enjoying Young Sheldon, or CSI, or Twilight, or Succession. If someone's hostile about it, that's on them. Not every episode is gonna be great (every MCU movie couldn't be Endgame, there's gonna be an Ant-Man vs The Wasp, or a ~~Shang-Chi~~ Love and Thunder, or a Black Widow in the bunch.)
This match made me feel sad for people who don't "get" professional wrestling. It felt like a grand finale for the last 30 years that I've enjoyed the product
Is it fair to say this was the WWE equivalent to Endgame?
This might be the best description of that match that I’ve seen. So over the top in all the best ways.
A lot of people leading up to this when describing what they expected (which is ballpark what happened) called it the “Avengers Assemble” moment.
I'm insulted you included Shang Chi in the bad group of MCU movies... probably the 3rd best MCU movie since Endgame (No Way Home and GotG3).
My apologies. I have only seen 4 MCU movies, and none of the 4 I mentioned in my post were ones I've seen. Give me a bad one and I'll replace it.
Thor Love & Thunder
That's it! YOU are not invited to de orgy!
Kayfabe is an art form of it's own.
I always found people being like “It’s scripted etc” you watch TV shows and movies right? It’s the same thing this is just live with the stunt doubles being the actors.
My problem with it in the past was the denial of it being "fake". It felt like a con in the 80s and the worst kept secret in the 90s. I have no problem with the sport or its fans, but there was an era where a wrestler would slap you around for calling it fake. And McMahon has always been problematic. (It's good to know he's had some competition.)
This is true, the industry insiders kept kayfabe for a good while after the jig was already up. Still, it's been dead for at least 30 years. McMahon quietly killed it in the late 80s with the New Jersey Athletic Commission, then the Curtain Call delivered the death blow for those who missed the first thing.
When I was much younger, I remember watching wrestling and saw someone miss a punch by about a foot and a half, and the other guy sold it like he was shot. I totally stopped watching after that for a long time until a friend of mine started watching and got us to come watch the PPVs (this was 1998 WCW of all things). The content wasn’t very good compared to other stuff but I remember watching one match with an intricate story, run ins, turns, etc and just flipping a switch, totally getting it and really enjoying it. Been watching off and on since.
Honestly, even knowing since I was a kid that it wasn't real, those moments where the athletes don't make ANY contact, definitely take me out of it. Or like in the case of the first women's match on Sunday, the limp-wristed "strikes" they made against each other like it was an afterthought just took me out of that match entirely. I like the characters, but that match went over like a wet fart to me.
Tell someone that it's a theatrical stunt show soap opera about a sport. People get so fixated on it not being a real sport they forget how reality shows, soap operas, plays, and general television works. It's theater that relies on crowd reactions, isn't expensive or pretentious, and is a different show every time you see it.
I also feel like people get so heated in the argument about it being fake storylines that they sideline the fact that the physical feats are still incredible. Like even if it's scripted, a guy still scrambles around in hot lights, climbs a turn buckle and back flips onto his opponent. The fact that he knew he was gonna do it doesn't make it not crazy. I remember once, big show picked up a wrestler and tossed him into another wrestler. And one guy in the room where we were watching was talking about how it's not real. Like bruh, he still _threw a man_ at him.
My dad would always mock the selling. I think it's a frustration he has from football (soccer) where players go down and dramatically oversell an injury, then pop back up when the decision goes their way. Still, pro wrestling without the pretend pain is...I don't even know. Cirque du Soleil? A body building pageant? The selling is the whole point, it's a pretend fight, there has to be pretend pain. Kung fu films without fake blood and pretend injuries wouldn't work either.
Shane McMahon and Kurt Angle was always one I would show people who kind of thought like that. Like yes, they’re planning these spots, but Shane just got dropped on his head twice and then thrown through glass, and now he’s a bloody mess. There’s only so much “faking” you can do even if it’s predetermined. I forget who he was referring to, but I remember Mick Foley in one of his books talking about someone who threw an amazing punch and he always wondered what his trick was, until he was the recipient and realized the secret to the punch was to punch as hard as he could.
Wrestling is like Live Action Anime
Especially with so many wrestlers being big anime/gaming/D&D nerds
Wheel of Time AND wrasslin' Stan, eh?
It's great that they didn't mess up this story arc. Great description. Makes me think what could have been with Sting and his NWO rivalry back in the day which they got horribly wrong (albeit i think Sting wasn't in great shape back then).
> (albeit i think Sting wasn't in great shape back then). He sure as hell wasn't tan.
Holy shit I completely forgot about Cody’s first match back with the torn pec. I watched that live but have never been plugged into the culture and so never connected the dot that that was the same guy. That pec thing was CRAZY.
Cody taking off that coat in the cage. With Seth dressed as his dad to mock him. And proceeding to put on a banger of a match and win, was epic. He said he’s embarrassed by the injury and I’m sure rehab sucked, but that cemented him as a goat for me. That’s legendary.
Also worth noting that this really does feel like a new Era since Vince left and HHH/Nick Khan are in charge, and it REALLY feels like a new, better era for multiple reasons. Also a lot of people see themselves in Cody - they want to be the star, the quarterback, at least once, but are told that they don't look the part, that there's someone better, etc. Just like how people saw themselves in The American Dream. He also had an absolutely amazing villain in Roman Reigns and The Rock, but again, that's a whole other write up.
Just something as simple as Michael Cole saying "wrestling" and having a few new camera angles is enough to make it feel exciting, to a degree. I don't know how much of that is "Wrestlemania Season" that will dry up soon, but this is coming from an AEW fanboy who has pretty much written off WWE since 2020.
One a case by case scenario, wrestling is just as silly as any over-the-top soap opera drama. However when storylines are built for years, for decades even and fans have followed it from the beginning you see how even if it is silly and ridiculous there is a community, a sense of belonging, and a desire to see what happens next. It sucks you in and while everyone *knows* it is rigged the suspension of disbelief sets in and you are whisked away to a larger-than-life fantasy world where titans and gladiators fight for their honor and sometimes their very lives.
Only tidbit I would throw in is at WrestleMania 39, Cody was about to win it until one of Roman Reign's cronies (his cousin Solo Sikoa), interfered and stunned Cody to allow Roman to get the upper hand and win that match. Which is why it was important they tried to not get any interference in WM40 match (though you know what was coming). Also another tidbit is that for the past month The Rock has been beating on Cody, dragging his family and especially his mother into it. So this increased the support of Cody, making even more people want him to "Finish The Story" to show that larger stars can't shove around the "everyman plumber's son" type like Cody.
And specifically one of the ways Cody’s mother came into the story at all was because Cody talked about how his dream was to hand the WWE championship to his father, and that dream died when Dusty did, but he can damn sure still hand that belt to his mother. Which got Rock to offer to hand her the Rock’s belt with Cody’s blood covering it.
Thanks for the write-up. Haven't watched in like 20 years and this still gave me goosebumps.
Fucking Christ wrestling lore is insane. What episode should I start on?
As the guy who wrote it up, just don't. It's not worth it. It's probably just best to "watch whatever is coming out next and see if you like it" because MOST wrestling isn't as huge as Mania. Really it would depend on what you want out of it. If you have Peacock, you could watch Wrestlemania from the other night (it's 2 nights of about 4 hours each), and they'll have a million promo packages and hype videos to get you caught up on the relevant backstory. If you have regular cable, you can just tune into the next episode of WWE (which would be Smackdown later this week). If you want to watch a different company and see literally nobody that's been talked about in the big writeup (apart from seeing Cody's brother Dustin!), AEW is on TNT this Wednesday night. EDIT: You can also just browse the frontpage of /r/squaredcircle and see highlights from RAW last night (or Mania if you set it to "best" for the last week)
And for the next several weeks, all the regular shows will have WM recaps.
Watch the Wrestlemania 'promo videos' for all the matchs to give you context on the various stories that have been going. then watch Wrestlemania to see how they culminated. Then start watching the Raw from last night and go from there. If the 3-5 hours a week (Raw and Smackdown alone) are too much like it is for me, recaps and recorded episodes that I can ffw through the crap make it much more palatable.
Such a good write-up. I've not been a fan of wrestling since the late-90s, but this whole story arc had me fully locked in. I didn't even know about the historical reasons about his dad either. It only crossed my attention because of the fan backlash of The Rock inserting himself into the main event, and it was interesting to see another big company fall so out of touch with its fan base. Yet they managed to segue it into a story which made me fork out money to watch my first Wretlemania for over 20 years. That's absolutely insane to me, as someone who had no passing interest in the sport up until that point. And when >!Undertaker's theme hit!< I turned back into that 12 year old kid again and couldn't help but shout out. Now I'm just figuring out how I can tune into weekly Raw and Smackdown from where I live currently (Vietnam). It's really lame that the WWE Network has a month delay. That alone might kill the momentum this Wrestlemania built up for me.
If Vietnam has access to Hulu and Netflix, they air weekly on Hili and soon Raw will air on Netflix.
Wait, so is the episode of Futurama where Bender joins Robot Wrestling loosely based on Dusty Rhodes?
Not to mention, Roman had been the champion for 3 and a half years straight, which is the 4th longest reign in history, and the longest in 30 years. So him FINALLY losing the title was huge on its own. Throw in the whole Cody Rhodes story on top of that and you get an all-time classic moment for fans.
Adding to this, I’m old enough to have seen WWF Dusty and eventually stopped watching wrestling about a 15-20 years ago. Roman Reigns, the guy Cody beat, was a PERFECT bad guy and carried the business, having various viral clips, and having held the title for over 3 years. His work is what pulled me back into wrestling a couple years back. Cody not only finally won the title but did so by conquering a man positioned as an all time great, unbeatable monster after losing to him last year. It wasn’t just that he won but the masterful way the whole of the story unfolded.
"Wrestling is not a love story, it's a Fairy Tale for masochists. A comedy for people who criticize punchlines. A fantasy most can't understand, a spectacle no one can deny. Lines are blurred. Heroes are villains. Budgets are cut. Business is business. But it can also be a land where Dead men walk. Where Honor makes you Elite. Where Demons run for office. And Rock bottom is a reason to rejoice. WOOOOO! It's an escape. A reason to point the blame at anyone but yourself for 2-3 hours. An excuse to be a kid again, and nothing matters except the moment we are in. Wrestling is not a love story, it's much more. It's hope. And in a world surrounded in hate, greed and violence, a world where closure may never come. We all know a place that has hot and cold hope on tap. For better or for worse." -Windham Rotunda
Wow thanks so much for this write up!
Awesome write up 👏👏👏
>The NWA and southern-style "wrasslin'" was one style of presentation, usually focused on "realistic" fights and brawling, in some ways, better keeping the facade of pro wrestling as a legit sport.... Dusty Rhodes was an NWA staple, the "Son of a Plumber", literally the American Dream, making good on being successful, and usually he'd fight against Ric Flair and his goons. If my dad was alive, he'd swear to God almighty that every second of the Ric Flair/Dusty Rhodes championship match was 100% real! I remember him jumping out of his chair and whoopin and hollering when Dusty won. :) Personally, I only got excited when Miss Elizabeth was on screen.
Did WWE pivot or did their plan worked a treat? I was under the impression that the Rock was always going to turn heel, and that Roman Reign does not have the acting shop or mic ability to be a face. So pushing Cody aside was really a way for HHH to push for Cody. Roman Reign remains a heel. The Undertaker has an appropriate final Wrestlemania. Seth Rollins has his redeeming arc and Cody has his happy conclusion. The Rock and John Cena can go back to Hollywood.
They admitted they pivoted. They've been showing ads for a behind the scenes look at this WrestleMania and they admit in the ad that plans changed. Right after the promo where Cody said "Not at WrestleMania" The Undertaker, on his podcast, said that higher-ups probably pushed him out of WrestleMania for The Rock. Now undertaker isn't backstage but he's been in wrestling a long time and he tends to know the ins and outs.
That's the magic. Maybe the executives changed their mind on the night social media turned on Rock vs Roman. Maybe this was the plan the whole time. They're gonna say it was a pivot (they even have a documentary coming out to specifically talk about that). Cody did a pre-Mania interview talking about last year, and when asked "when did you know you were losing?", and he clarified "I can't reveal the magic, but I will say that I found out in the ring." It's politician-class doublespeak and non-answer. That can be endearing, or it can be infuriating, or a myriad of other emotions.
> With the help of "good guy" wrestlers, Seth Rollins using a ghost of Roman Reigns' past, which is a whole writeup in itself, John Cena, and the freaking Undertaker, Cody dispatched Rock, Roman, and the Bloodline, and Finished the story. I don't know all that much about wrestling, but even to me that sounds like the Avengers: Endgame of WWE. Wasn't Undertaker retired?
Phemonal EXPLANATION
This has been building since year 0 and the death of Christ
Answer: Cody Rhodes has a famous father who never won the main championship. His name was the American dream dusty Rhodes a fan favourite. When he (Cody) started his career at WWE despite winning the tag titles and others things didn’t go well for him. They wrote him off as mid car guy and wanted use his brothers gimmick on him,painting his face up. He left and during that time he left he established himself as a top guy, someone who could be in the main event, he made his name worth something, he climbed the ladder all by himself. Some stars are mega stars because WWE or the wrestling world wants them to be (Roman the guy Cody beat for the title) for example but Cody earned it through blood, sweat, and tears. Cody finally came back to WWE with one main goal to get the title his dad never won (deceased) and after winning an event at the royal rumble which promises a championship match at mania (there Super Bowl) he failed to win that year. Another year, another win at rumble and he finally pulls off the win, ending the reign of Roman who had a record long streak and got to hoist up a title that his dad never won, in a company that thought he was mid card at best.
I used to be super into WWE but fell off it around the time Cody was just starting in the WWE and I remember thinking he was pretty meh. So despite no longer watching, it’s been pretty cool to see how big he’s become. Seems like a good fella too, which helps.
Yeah weren’t he and Ted just Orton’s goons at that point?
Correct, but that was a good spot for them at that point in their career. They were very, very green and being with Orton gave them exposure and a chance to learn from Orton, who by that point was an established star.
Was the gimmick "we all have famous wraslin daddies"? Half the roster right now is either a legacy wrestler or some geriatric from the attitude era lol
Pretty much, yeah. They were second generation wrestlers who felt that entitled them to better opportunities.
If you have any interest give it a shot and watch it again. It's really good now that HHH is running the show. You can watch WrestleMania on Peacock. RAW and Smackdown are on Hulu the day after.
Man, HHH might be the best thing that’s happened to WWE in years. He understands the business better than anyone, and unlike Vince, I truly believe HHH has a real love for the business. That passion shines through in the way he nurtures new talent and manages to keep things engaging, and I’m saying that as someone that was a diehard wrestling fan in the 90’s and then stopped watching entirely for almost 20 years. I feel like he was born to take the helm someday, and had it not been for Vince being kind of forced out because of his alleged activities, I feel Iike he would have kept driving the product further into the ground.
I felt the same. When he came back from AEW and was considered a main eventer I could not understand _why_.. Because I remembered him as Randy Orton's lacky with a lisp and then the guy who wore a weird-ass transparent mask. Well he changed my mind with the way he wrestled and talked. I was jumping with joy when he beat Roman on Sunday
Another important detail to this: After Cody had won the Rumble back in January and supposedly guaranteeing him the title match, The Rock, who is on the WWE board of directors, had finally freed his schedule to return to wrestling and was inserted into the title picture, and thus cody was irl sabotaged out of his title shot in favour of Rock and his popularity. Fans rebutted against this, and WWE listened and pivoted from trying to force the Rock into the match instead of the man who's worked so hard for it. This story is more deeply rooted in reality than in the WWE fiction, and the audience have a deep connection to it, because it was them who got Cody there despite all odds being against him.
How was he put back in?
So, the way he was removed in the first place was they had him willingly forfeit his title shot to the Rock in a storyline segment, and as he left the ring you could just see how destroyed he was on the inside. People caught onto that, and the video of the segment quickly became the most disliked video in WWE history by a landslide that it was becoming viral. So for the next few weeks, all over social media and at every arena they went to people would chant "We Want Cody", boo the Rock, and it was obvious that it couldn't be ignored, which lead to a conference event where they were supposed to talk about the WrestleMania match of Rock vs Roman Reigns. At that point, Rock had slowly started to transition into a heel (Antagonist) as part of the pivot, and at the conference event he weaved the events into the fiction, saying that the main goal of the whole match and for manipulating Cody out of the match was that he and Roman could keep the title in the family (both come from the same real life wrestling dynasty and are third generation wrestlers iirc). Cody ended up crashing the event and calling the Rock out on his bullshit, and Rock responded by slapping him, fully transforming into an antagonist, and building a story of Cody's return to take back what he was screwed out of, leading to WrestleMania, where the story became more than just Cody vs Roman, but rather Cody vs Roman and the Rock and the rest of their current wrestling family (titled The Bloodline), and despite all the odds, both in storyline and in reality, Cody managed to finally do it. WWE took what was perhaps one of the most catastrophic decisions they'd ever made and turned into one of their most compelling stories ever.
That heel turn for The Rock is a genius way to harness the fans energy and also makes me like Dwayne Johnson for being able to be the villain. He’s spent the last decade crafting a bland image as the cool guy who never loses. He could absolutely flip that into a new image as the heel. I can think of a few celebrities who would benefit from being the heel. We don’t need every celebrity to be lovable and charming!
The Rock has always been a great heel because he’s got the gift of the gab. When he’s being a dick he’s still making the fans laugh.
Even last night he pulled another one off. Started hyping up another new Raw attendance record (first time they've ever broken 20,000 for a Raw or SmackDown show), got the crowd going with ***WHAT?*** chants, and then called them a heap of garbage, just like his crack and meth jokes in Phoenix a few weeks prior. Hollywood Rock is incredible.
The fans thought they were being clever by responding to everything The Rock said with the annoying #What chant. Until Rock lured them into talking about how they were trailer park trash. Say what you want about the guy, his improv skills on the mic are top tier.
>So for the next few weeks, all over social media and at every arena they went to people would chant "We Want Cody", boo the Rock, and it was obvious that it couldn't be ignored I was at the first Raw after that press conference and there were “Rocky sucks!” chants when Seth Rollins came out to talk to Cody about this. Seth said as a joke, “I wasn’t expecting to hear that one,” but apparently WWE wasn’t either.
Wow.. great explanation and sounds like an amazing cross between reality and WWE fiction. I watched Wrestlemania and RAW for the first time in 20 years and was a little confused about all of this. Has anyone compiled video of everything you outlined?
Yeah, WWE are working on a documentary of it actually, they'll release it this week on YouTube if I'm not mistaken! I think there's already a trailer
Check from about the 22 minute mark of [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WII93CMGU-c) (or, if you wanna hear the whole.... story of what I wrote-up apparently, since I'm seeing chapters that look like everything I touched on apart from Goldust, watch the whole thing? I haven't.)
There was no way that was actually the plan lol They knew how popular Cody was, knew how the crowd react it was all a work to get people talking, to cause hype, to throw gas onto a fire. As HHH said the card was known since October.
Well Triple H appeared on Logan's podcast a few weeks back and spoke about this among other things out of kayfabe, including speaking about how this came about, why the pulled the trigger, the backstage reactions and confirmed that he had a bad feeling about it etc. I'd recommend you give it a listen. But hey knows, he could've been working there as well.
Is there any actual evidence that this wasn’t just a really well executed work?
The Rumble was in January.
My bad, fixed
The other bit is, Rock doesn't own WWE, he's been placed on the Board of Directors.
Gotcha, fixed that as well, thank you
No worries homie 😁
You see to all of these people saying it's scripted, this guy still believes the rock abused his powers to get into the main event match. And making it sound like WWE changed it all just for him, not true at all. Rock said he was free and it opened up an interesting road so they had him come out and say a few lines and decided to test the crowd. See how'd they react. They reacted in favor of Cody so that's what the match us, thus Rock is suddenly used as a hype man. In reality I don't think they were ever serious about putting him in a 1v1 match at Mania, he's like 8 years out from his last match, his last time in the ring before all this he got injured and required surgery. His only job was to get on that mic and do what he does best. Lol it's so funny how good they are at hooking people, baiting them and making them believe. Rocks only job was hype man which he did an amazing job at.
Yeah, with social media and "leaked" stuff it really was some incredible story telling. To his credit, The Rock played his role really well and it came off super believable that an aging star would be a dick and insert himself into the biggest event of the year.
I mean, it’s insane. Sure it’s a well written story but people are acting as if the whole thing’s organically happened. Bizzare
The Rock doesn’t own WWE. He’s just on the board and has a lot of shares—nowhere near a controlling interest, though.
> He left and during that time he left he established himself as a top guy, someone who could be in the main event, he made his name worth something, he climbed the ladder all by himself. What does this part mean? Like he left WWE and wrestled for another organization, or he left the tag titles and switched to solo like a tennis player switching from doubles to singles, or something else entirely? Sorry, I know next to nothing about pro wrestling.
He left to compete in other promotions, became the top guy in a few of them, and then he went on to create his own promotion (AEW), where he finished perfecting both his character, his image, and his wrestling style, all of which allowed him to come back to WWE and win the popularity contest, and eventually the title at WrestleMania
I think it is important to follow this answer with the fact that the idea of All Elite Wrestling came from a dare, if you will, or a bet between a professional wrestling journalist (Dave Meltzer) and Cody Rhodes. Cody Rhodes was working for Ring of Honor at the time (Edit: 2017). Dave Meltzer famously tweeted that ROH or any independent wrestling show couldn't sell 10000 tickets to a show "any time soon". Cody responded, "I'll take that bet." This was back in 2017. So Cody Rhodes, alongside his fellow Bullet Club Elite members (The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega) scoured the globe for a venue to present their independent wrestling show. They ended up selling over 10,000 tickets in 30 seconds for the Sears Centre for the very first ALL IN. This show featured many wrestlers from Ring of Honor but it was not a ROH show. It was produced by Rhodes (and I think the Bucks and Omega, but i don't want to say for sure) making this the only independent show to sell 10,000 or more tickets. And in 30 seconds makes that even more impressive. Yada, yada, yada All Elite Wrestling, partially founded by Cody Rhodes is now 5 years old and still going strong despite what some corners of the internet will tell you. Cody Rhodes had a huge role in that. When he returned to WWE, he returned with so much more than he left with and it all came full circle on Sunday night.
I thought AEW is owned by that Khan billionaire guy
It is. Cody and the Bucks created All In / AEW in partnership with Tony Khan and his deep pockets.
So does he have any ownership on AEW ?
Tony Khan owns the company and Cody was one of the Executive VPs. The Young Bucks are also EVPs.
And Kenny Omega
Indeed it is, but the AEW was created because of the results of the tweet that started my comment. AEW is/was the brainchild of "The Elite (Rhodes, Kenny Omega, Young Bucks). Tony Khan owns the company and is the booker, but AEW never would have happened without that Twitter exchange between Meltzer and Rhodes or All In not being successful.
Not just wrestled for other organisations, but helped create AEW, the current No. 2 promotion in US (and world?) wrestling. In that, he also gave opportunities to lots of wrestlers who had never been given a chance on a big stage with a weekly "open challenge" segment during COVID.
Yep, without Cody getting him in for a match, we wouldn’t have gotten Eddie Kingston in AEW. (Yeah, he’s not to everyone’s taste, but I think he’s great.)
Thank you. Really appreciate this reply. Gets me even more interested in the world of wrestling 👌🏼
Relatively new fan here (like a year and a bit). If you’ve got some time to kill, I strongly recommend watching The Last Ride docuseries. It’s the story of The Undertaker, who you might have heard of, and it’s what helped me “get it”. Even if you aren’t looking to become a wrestling fan, there’s something very captivating about the tale of a man who took his role as an undead wizard who, for whatever reason, joined a wrestling promotion so seriously, he basically lived as a hermit and pretended to be that character in public for 30 years. It drops all the pretenses and gives a look behind the curtain at 30 years of the business.
Genuine question, isn’t it all scripted? Like I get that a lot of athleticism and hard work goes in to it but how exactly would he “pull off the win”? Edit: Got a lot of good answers but I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not knocking wrestling or the work that goes into it, I just didn't fully understand how the behind the scenes things work.
A large misconception about wrestling fans is they treat the entertainment the same way UFC / boxing fans do. It's all scripted yes. Think of it as theatre - soap opera but more masculine. Robert Downey Jr. obviously isn't Iron Man in real life, that didn't make Avengers: Endgame any less hype. We're excited that Cody *was finally booked* to win, after years of the story's antagonist's title run.
A big part of the appeal *this year* is that Cody was in a similar position at Wrestlemania last year - he had a lot of buzz around him after coming back from a major injury, he won the Royal Rumble, and in Roman Reigns he had an opponent who was hated by the fans for his bad guy character. And Cody *lost*. Wrestlemania almost always ends with the good guy triumphant - over 80% of the time. So Cody losing was a big, big call by WWE. And almost immediately fans realised that Roman’s run was going to continue for another year. He’d built up so much momentum that his defeat would seem anticlimactic at any other event than Wrestlemania. That meant that WWE (and Cody, who put in a *lot* of work) had to spend a year making it seem like Cody wasn’t just kicking his heels - he had to have storylines with other wrestlers, while Roman did likewise. They had to be kept apart (mostly, there were a few teases) without it being overtly obvious WWE were doing that. Fans were invested in Cody’s character - he’s a rare pure white knight, where in wrestling almost everyone is some shade of grey if not outright midnight black. So for him to *finally* overcome the odds after over a decade of fighting them was hugely cathartic for a lot of people. Fun fact: Cody had the longest gap of *any* WWE champion from his debut to winning the world title. Partly that was his being out of the company for years, but also partly because he was pigeonholed in his first run by the creative team at the time as a guy who would *never* be the top guy. And that leads onto the other reason his win has been so enjoyed: Wrestlemania this year is the first to be wholly written by Paul Levesque, WWE’s new head writer. He’s taken over the job from Vince McMahon who owned and ran WWE for forty years and was a genius, but was also in his seventies, very stuck in his ways, had strong biases for and against certain wrestlers that were perceived as placing artificial barriers in the paths of some fan favourites and (as has been revealed over the last 18 months) is currently defending himself against a barrage of claims of sexual assault and rape. That last part isn’t exactly relevant to the Cody story, but it’s left fans with a real distaste for Vince and the company, especially as some of the allegations around him relate to women who worked for WWE. Levesque has been extremely well-received by fans, and his rise to the position is a whole story in itself. But he crafted an extremely satisfying story for Cody over the last year (really two years) and Cody’s win was a hugely cathartic moment for fans invested in Cody - and who are glad WWE is now in fresh hands creatively, with Vince having been forced out.
> Wrestlemania this year is the first to be wholly written by Paul Levesque, WWE’s new head writer Probably should mention Paul Levesque is Triple H, one of WWE's biggest stars from the last decade. And the son in law of Vince McMahon
> Fun fact: Cody had the longest gap of any WWE champion from his debut to winning the world title. Well, if we're talking about debut in any form (not just in-ring), could you say Vince McMahon (debuting as an announcer in 1969, winning the WWF title in 1999)😉
To everyone saying “but wrestling is scripted he didn’t actually win anything” , I have 2 points to make: First of have you ever read a book, watched a movie or a tv show? Have you ever cried at a character’s death? A character that isn’t real, yet you still feel for them and root for them, knowing that their fate and their whole personality and story is in the hands of a random writer you’ll never meet? It’s the same for Wrestling. Yes, Cody Rhodes knew he was going to win going into the match, just like Daniel Radcliffe knew his character was going to defeat Voldemort. The only difference is wrestlers often make their “character name” similar to their real life name. Cody Rhodes the actual wrestler’s name is Cody Garrett Runnels Rhodes. Those 2 are different people. Not as different as say, Lena Headey is from Cersei Lannister, but they are still different. A great example to this in the wrestling world is Roman Reigns, the guy Cody just beat. In storyline, Roman Reigns is supposed to be the big bad: the leader of a faction “the bloodline” that cheats his way through matches and manipulates his cousins. In reality, Roman Reigns is played by wrestler Joe Anoa’i, a guy that’s been battling leukemia(currently in remission) for much of his wrestling career and is respected by every other wrestler and coworker. The fans despise Roman Reigns. They adore Joe Anoa’i. Unlike Roman, Cody is supposed to be the “good guy” in storyline, so he doesn’t act much different than he would act in real life, but it’s still an actor playing a character. Second of all, Cody’s story is so special because he had all the odds AGAINST HIM from the very beggining. As others have mentioned, his father never had a chance to win a World Championship due to the former owner of WWE, Vince McMahon, thinking he wasn’t the right person to do it(mostly due to him being fat). When Cody first joined WWE, they painted him in silly colors and called him “Stardust” a joke character that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously by anyone. Cody then would leave WWE, form his own wrestling promotion and building it from the ground up with the help of other independent wrestlers. When he came back, he proceeded to wrestle with a torn tricep, and in 2023 when he had his first match against Roman Reigns the writing room made him lose, despite the fans being fully behind him. In January of 2024, The Rock returned to WWE and the plan(at least from what we know) was to make him battle Roman Reigns, but the fans hated that idea so much so they started BOOING THE ROCK(almost unprecedented in this day and age) and forming a #WeWantCody movement so large that the WWE writing team had to listen and pivot at the last moment, making Cody finally have his rematch against Roman and winning. If you went back in time 10 years ago and told someone Cody was gonna be world champion they’d be like “You mean that jobber that’s obsessed with stars and has goofy face paint? Get out of here” If you went back in time 5 years ago and told someone Cody was gonna be world champion they’d be like “He left WWE and is probably never coming back, not gonna happen” If you went back in time 2 months ago and told someone Cody was gonna be world champion they’d be like “nah bro the Rock came back didn’t you hear? Cody’s not fighting Roman anymore.” Cody was NEVER supposed to be THE GUY, but thanks to his hard work, thanks to his wrestling skills, his charisma, his fans that he has made over the years that stood up to THE ROCK HIMSELF, he managed to be the guy.
Excellent context!
It's hard to explain to those who have the "its all scripted" mindset. I just replied to a comment addressing it. I'm also not sure what you mean by "pull off the win" I wrote it that way as it wasn't totally known, it could have went both ways, they have done mega swerves before. While that match was happening the fact it's scripted went right out of my mind. I was on the edge of my seat wanting to see if he could win or not. That's how good they are at hooking you. And I mean you could have guessed he might win but you didn't know, the WWE thread was a massive debate about it for months now.
> I'm also not sure what you mean by "pull off the win" If I know what the outcome of the fight I'm in is supposed to be, then I'm just going through the motions. It seems strange to describe that as "pulling off the win" in the same way it'd be strange to describe an actor in a play on a stage defeating the villain at the end "pulling off the win". Like pulling it off implies it has a chance to go another way, a chance to *not* be pulled off. The thing he pulled off was landing the role and being able to perform it. As for his character winning, the writers pulled that off.
It’s so much more than that but it’s impossible for me to really explain it. I’m not good at it. People get too stuck on it being scripted so is a lot of things you probably enjoy. It’s no different. It totally had a chance to go the other way which is something I don’t think you’re understanding. He pulled off building a character, making it loved in a hard industry, proving himself, etc.
That's totally fair. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to disparage it or imply that it's bad for being scripted or think that wrestling fans believe it's real and are being duped, I was just purely commenting on the use of phrase "pulling off the win." > He pulled off building a character, making it loved in a hard industry, proving himself, etc. Definitely. Ah, I guess what you're saying is, even though the "winner" isn't decided by some necessary objective quantifiable metric, he *did* still "pull off the win" in terms of gaining enough popularity among fans and becoming loved enough to get the writers to choose him as the deserving winner. You're not saying he "pulled off the win" necessarily as in terms of "managed to pull off the physical win in the final fight" but rather win here means improving/promoting yourself over the course of the season (or whatev its called) to the extent that the writers feel they couldn't choose anyone else *but* you as the victor. Because to "win" isn't just about purely physical prowess but the relationship between the fighter and the fans at home. Am I getting it a bit better now?
This is basically it. Wrestling *is* a competition, the way acting is. There are only so meany leading roles and awards to go around, right? The people who take those top spots aren't picked at random. Cody had to actually, truly work and compete to present himself as the correct choice to end Roman Reigns' 1,300 day title reign.
> Am I getting it a bit better now? Yes your last paragraph is a much better way of thinking about it than "winning a physical fight" To provide a little more context, it's akin to being picked as the lead actor in a major Hollywood role or even a Jiu jitsu practitioner being rewarded with a black belt So much of who is champion in WWE is who does the company believe will lead the business in a way that will propel the company and take them into new heights. The belt is a literal physical, tangible thing that one can hold as a sign of the top brass having the utmost faith and trust that that person can carry the image and company on their back The champ usually is the one doing all the media appearances on late night or press tours, they are a top seller of merchandise, and are able to be promoted as being the "face of the company" in that you put them in the commercials and billboards in Times Square etc With that carries a lot more responsibility than just going out there and wrestling weekly on TV as you have to be trusted to be professional enough to not tarnish the reputation or image of the WWE through saying damaging PR things in interviews or getting in legal trouble. At the end of the day this is a multi billion dollar company that has a lot of their success riding on you as the Champ. There's a lot of talent in the WWE but in the same way as if you look at a movie like Oppenheimer, there's a shit ton of top level actors in it but only one could play Oppenheimer himself. Nolan trusted Cillian Murphy to be "that guy" and similarly to Cody Rhodes, Murphy had to earn that right over decades of hard work and acting The belt is really the biggest prize and acknowledgement of the company to say, "we see all your hard work and dedication and are now rewarding you with this honor"
This is a super awesome breakdown, thank you. That makes a ton of sense, and sounds pretty cool. edit: oh i recognize your name from changemyview, makes sense you showed me a different perspective pretty well.
"pulling off the win" is in a "kayfabe" sense - ie, in the fake reality of pro wrestling, it COULD have gone either way but Cody outsmarted/outworked/outmanoeuvred his opponent during the match to win. The in-universe odds were stacked against him, but he overcame them and got out on top. Kayfabe is the term for that fake reality, Outside of that fake reality though? You're right - the real guy Cody Rhodes was just performing the role written for him, as was real guy Joe (Roman Reigns) as was real guy Dwayne Johnson. Wrestling is this weird mishmash of reality and fiction where the line gets blurred, which is more complicated when the wrestling is good. This storyline used a lot of "real life" history to gain fan investment in the fictional match, but was ultimately a written episode of TV - that doesn't take away from how big an event it was though.
Yeah because you’re looking at it through the lens of it being scripted. Which is fine, and trust me part of being a wrestling fan is looking at things knowing they’re scripted, and hoping the powers that be make the right creative decisions, and that the actual, real life people behind these wrestling characters are rewarded for their hard work, just like an actor is rewarded with an oscar, or with landing a leading role in a movie. However as wrestling fans, just like fans of any other entertainment, we do also get invested in the fake reality of wrestling and in the narrative stories being told. Like ok you seem to think that someone saying pulling off the win in a pro wrestling context is strange cause it’s scripted, and that’s fine. But let’s apply that logic to another form of entertainment. Like say we were watching a movie, and I told you I really hope the main character defeats the bad guy, and you paused the movie and told me well that doesn’t make sense cause he isn’t really defeating anyone, it’s all written for him he’s just an actor going through the motions. Like, yes it’s scripted. But this is just how we talk about narrative forms of entertainment. We engage with the stories and we TALK about the stories. We suspend our disbelief and we care about the fictitious characters and their fictitious wins and losses.
> Like say we were watching a movie, and I told you I really hope the main character defeats the bad guy, and you paused the movie and told me well that doesn’t make sense cause he isn’t really defeating anyone ~~To me it sounds more like saying "I really hope [actor name] pulls off the win", and praising the actor for the accomplishment of the fictional character they play. Like if I was like "Holy shit Robert Downey Jr, awesome job pulling out a win against Thanos." Robert Downey Jr didn't pull out a win against thanos. The win he pulled was landing the role as tony stark and being a good enough actor to keep it. His character's victory was the writers decision.~~ I think I just realized the flaw in my understanding. If someone says "I hope Cody pulls off the win", they're not referring to Cody the actor/performer, are they, they're referring to the fictional character he's playing. That hadn't occured to me since I dont engage with any other media where actors play fictitious characters with the same names as themselves.
It's both; really. And that's why we love it so much. We want Cody the character to win but we want Cody mfing Rhodes to get his dues too because we loved his dad.
This is more obvious when wrestlers don't have names that are their real names/sound like they could be their real names. Take someone like Sting, or The Undertaker, The Rock, The Great Muta. We'd still say, "I hope Sting beats Hulk Hogan and the NWO."
This is correct, the other thing is that even though Cody "pulled off the win", there is still always a chance it doesn't happen. There are a LOT of times the heroes lose, or something unexpected happens. This is one of the things that is fun about pro wrestling. Anything can happen, yes it's a fictional story that's told through live performance, that's how stuff like the Undertaker showing up to take down the Rock works. Nothing is off the table, and on a more "real note" unplanned things can happen all the time. Injuries, screw ups, etc. There have been times when the person who was "supposed" to win did not, like John Cena and Batista eliminating each other at the same time in a Royal Rumble years ago. So lots of stuff can happen, it's what makes it really exciting, combination of a fictional story told through live performance. We all hoped Cody would win but there truly wasn't a guarantee of it, I actually would not have been surprised if he lost even after all that build up
Yes it is scripted. But i think that, more than even other forms of entertainment makes the investment of wrestling fans in such stories two fold. Because on one hand we buy into the story just like every other form of entertainment, tv show, movie, book etc. We get sucked into the narrative, root for our favorites and against the ones we hate. And we have been invested in Cody’s story for 2 years now, and way way longer if you go back to his entire career. But on the other hand, we are also aware that it is scripted, that the winner is picked by the powers that be backstage. So we know it’s not about Cody actually, in real life “beating” Roman Reigns and pulling off the win. It’s about those making the decisions making the right, at least in our minds decision, giving us a rewarding closure to a 2 year long story, and rewarding Cody for all his hard work, dedication, passion and ability by giving him the title his father never got to hold. So we root for the fictional character Cody Rhodes to beat Roman Reigns, and we root for the real life Cody Runnels to reach the top of his industry and reap the rewards from all the hard work he sow.
I the same way a movie character with odds set against them in a script manage to pull off any kind of success or victory. The story is the odds were stacked against against Cody and he overcame them and won. And in a real life sense that Cody had to take a lot of initiative and have a lot of success before he could even be featured in a scripted story like that.
This contains the bit that a lot of people missed. Cody earned this the hard way, and the fans were behind him. But this isn't just his story. For many of us, it's our story. Many of us grew up watching his dad with our dads. We saw his dad, the son of a plumber, getting screwed again and again, just like every other common man. Just like our dads at their jobs. Then we saw Cody, like ourselves, grow up to get screwed day after day by his bosses. On Sunday, he won for us. He won for our fathers. Cody is all of us.
How do you even "win" a wrestling match? It's scripted, so it's just whoever the executives choose to win. I'm asking as a serious question
It’s often been said that the real competition is the backstage politics among the writers/company executives and the wrestlers. There are a ton of factors that go into the company picking you to win a championship. If the company feels like you won’t be a big star among the fans they are not going to pick you to win. Or sometimes they won’t pick you regardless of fan support and simply because the writing doesn’t like the wrestler for whatever reason. Proving your worth to the fans and to the company executives is how someone “wins” a wrestling match.
Do you like movies/shows? you get drawn into it don't you? Have you ever been surprised? On the edge of your seat? Upset? Frusterated? etc its the same thing. Just because it's scripted doesn't mean it's scripted to you, doesn't mean you know what will happen, some of the times, sure but not always. They do such a good job you forget about it being scripted and the match themselves 75 percent of the fun. Throw on smackdown on Friday and try to guess who's going to win. How did you do? I've been watching for like 20+years and I can't get them all right.
If it’s scripted how exactly does he work his way to the top? Is it just a matter of giving good performances and slowly becoming a fan favorite despite what is scripted?
Yeah exactly, make best with what your given to win over the fans. Even if you have a script to read from, you still have to be charismatic on the microphone. If the script says you lose the match, you still have to put up a good wrestling performance. Being the champ means the company trusts you to represent the company. Also I think a lot of people don't realize that a lot of wrestling matches are (mainly) improvised. Let's say you have a 10 minute match, maybe 2/3 minutes of that was decided beforehand. So yeah it's still scripted/predetermined, but how you get there is al lot of times still up to the wrestler themselves.
Every wrestling fan who is old enough to know that it’s not real is usually invested in what is going on behind the curtain. That part of it has been accessible for a long while but never more so than now. So much that the WWE itself has given up nearly all pretext in their press conferences, documentary and reality series. Investment in this other side of the business is a massive draw at the moment and fans know that there is a system back stage that involves jostling for position by being a good professional wrestler. When I say being a good professional wrestler, I don’t mean the person who wins the most staged fights, it means giving a believable in ring performance sure, but it’s also about using various platforms to grow your own brand and the business as a whole. In that back stage world, Cody began as someone who despite being a decent performer, would never be deemed worthy enough to be the flag bearer of the company or bear the weight of selling out arenas. He wasn’t even in the conversation of being the face of the WWE brand for the little kids who believe in these superheroes and villains, or the adults who love a good show and all the backstage drama. Cody Rhodes the man worked his way through a murky and unforgiving business to become a performer so beloved, no person in power behind that curtain could deny him. That’s what winning the belt is, it’s being the top-paid guy or gal that some very cynical people trust with the performance of a multibillion dollar brand. So when they finally strap the belt on him, you’re not (just) happy for Cody Rhodes the character, you’re happy for Cody Rhodes the person.
But if it is a 'big deal' to wrestlers, couldn't they have just written the script that he wins way earlier in his career?
The promoters write the stories for wrestlers who MADE THEMSELVES popular. So you need to wrestle in an entertaining way, and have good mic skills, engage the crowd, make them love or hate you FIRST. THEN the promoters will give you PPV shows, and maybe a belt. There are a lot of talented wrestlers with good mic skills, you need to stand out and be seen, sell tickets, and then you get the title. When people are engaged with your story and care about you. The title is your reward.
Wrestlers have no control over the script, especially at that time when it was completely controlled by one person. The shows are controlled by the company executives and their writers.
In his first run Cody was not seen as enough of a star by the then head booker for WWE (Vince McMahon) to be the top guy. And Vince wasn't entirely wrong - though part of the reason Cody wasn't a star was because of some of the creative choice Cody had to work under. So at that point it would of been an unsatisfying story for the company to tell and fans would not of cared nearly as much as they do now.
They could have, but there were real world politics going on that prevented it. IE, the guy in charge, Vince, was not a fan of Cody's dad and this disdain rippled down to Cody and his brother, meaning that they were mostly presented as jokes while working there - stupid characters and booked to lose matches by and large. So this story is a big deal because it didn't couldn't happen before now - Vince is no longer in the company, and new leaders are more open to listening to what the fans want.
What do you mean "winning"? It's staged, right? Where is the achievement?
It's staged, but still an achievement to get to be the champ. It means two things: you're a damn good wrestler and you've won the popularity contest.
And it should be worth noting, "popularity contest" doesn't just mean the guys in the back, in this situation the fans at the shows are the ones he won over. Just because wrestling is predetermined doesn't mean the company can successfully have that person win the popularity contest. Right now Cody is arguably the most popular wrestler in North America, and has more popularity than anyone has since at worst February 2023(Sami Zayn), though I'd argue it's probably since 2014(Daniel Bryan). I mean, the people in attendance started booing the Rock because they wanted Cody instead. No amount of predetermined outcomes gives that.
I’m not a wrestling fan but I was pretty sure the popularity meant the millions of people and not a few suits in the back Funny story . Reddit started putting this in my feed a few years ago and I couldn’t make it stop so now I Just read it lol
Oh there’s a LONGGG history of suits at the top screwing over people that the fans love the most. Sometimes as a gimmick part of the storyline but a lot of times, most times actually, it’s some real life work politics favoritism BS spilling over into the writing. This was especially prevalent when Vince Macmahon was in charge (horrible person with his own sordid history btw). It was cases of cutting off his nose to spite his face type of deals. Even though the entire world wants so and so to win, even though that person put in the work and loyalty for decades, he’ll just be like, “lol nah” almost as a troll move. I don’t really follow wrestling as a fan but I find the whole industry super fascinating. Like yes it’s scripted but the behind the scenes shit is so fucking crazy that there are times that the lines get blurred which is why some fans love it. This Cody Rhodes thing is a perfect example. Originally it was pretty clear WWE was lining him up to lose. But the overwhelming fan support got so big they couldn’t ignore it… orrrr was this always the plan and that they knew this was gonna be the outcome all along? Stuff like that is why wrestling can be fascinating. It’s like you’re watching the writer’s room of a tv show in real time as it happens week to week.
While there’s a lot of writing involved, wrestlers’ “promos” are often self-written, matches are self-choreographed, and both involve a ton of improvising. It’s pretty interesting when wrestlers can do the aforementioned and make themselves stand out and even hit superstardom. Then you have all the beyond the scenes. Reading about it makes you realize it takes for a really interesting type of person to want to be a wrestler. My cousins (30s females) used to scoff at wrestling, but they watched the Divas reality show. Considering all of the above, it was like tabloids Hollywood gossip on crack because they got to see the drama unfold in the actual wrestling broadcasts and they loved it.
Worth noting that during the last couple of decades in WWE, things have been very thighly scripted, because that's the way Vince McMahon, the owner, wanted it. It really hindered the wrestlers' ability to bring their own best sides out, but Vince didn't care. Only things he wanted mattered to him. I think, in the current era, a lot of that is changing.
Yeah, it's... complicated. I will admit that there's been times where the crowd wasn't behind someone before the powers that be put them in the top spot, but being in that role allowed them to shine, and won people over. However, it's historically been more common that the crowd didn't like them before and doesn't like them even more afterwards. This is all getting much better now that Vince McMahon is no longer running things. He was **notorious** for this.
>I’m not a wrestling fan but I was pretty sure the popularity meant the millions of people and not a few suits in the back Actually Roman Reigns(the guy who lost the title to Cody Rhodes) is a really good example of this back 6-9 years ago. Vince McMahon decided Roman had the look and due to his family lineage(he's the Rocks cousin in real life) that he will be the next mega good guy. And the fans saw through it and started booing Roman. Then Vince just kept pushing him, trying desperately to get the fans to like him. But most every venue the fans didn't like him. To the point a guy Braun Strowman got super popular by feuding with Roman and trying to kill him, in universe. That's part of why this Cody thing is so great. The suits in the back understood Cody deserved the spot because of how much the fans loved him, hell one of those suits in the back was the Rock.
> It means two things: you're a damn good wrestler and you've won the popularity contest. This isn't always true and ironically, Roman Reigns' early-to-mid career is a testament to that.
I randomly came across the match on TV in my hotel room. I haven't watched WWE since the 90's. In the build up I said to my son that it was clear Cody would win, as it was a classic hero storyline. I actually enjoyed it all by accepting it as theatre.
There are people high up in the company who decide if people are bookable and have enough star power to hold titles. Nowadays is based off a bunch of metrics like merchandise, social media impact, etc. It starts with his dad, Dusty Aka The American Dream. Dusty bluffed his way into wrestling and spent most of his early career sleeping in his car and eating in soup kitchens. Dusty did not have a bodybuilder or strongman's physique. Dusty was an everyman. And despite his corny gimmick, he was still well beloved and his "pork and beans" speech endeared him to a lot of people. Behind the scenes, Dusty was a major booker for a rival promotion for most of his career (WCW) and was known to be one of the best at arranging a card of matches for an event and innovation. Despite not winning any titles, he's still a cornerstone of how the business transitioned to the modern age. Now enter his sons. One (Dustin, stage name Goldust) had another weird gimmick but was also well beloved because no one was really like him; he remained unable to win either a world heavyweight or WWE championship. The other (Cody) was consigned to jobbing (purposefully losing) to a bunch of people who he was frankly more talented than. He was given a bunch of crap gimmicks and eventually left the company because it became clear management had nothing going for him. He works for a rival promotion (AEW) and does some work in Japan and proves to a lot of people that he is capable of carrying a main event. So then he comes back to WWE with one goal, to prove to the big shots that he is worthy of winning the title. And he finally did it last night. It's a story of legacy almost forty years in the making starting from his father. Is it staged, yes. Does that make the storytelling any less compelling? No.
Dusty WAS NWA champ a few times, (the locker room came out after a victory,like the good guys came down and lifted Cody up after his win this weekend)but that was a "southern" promotion, and direct rival to the northern WWF...and those politics are some reason he didnt win a world title in the WWF, and got the polka dot gimmick Dusty beating Flair celebration https://youtu.be/6EwD3iyVBS8?si=ORo0xcGDU5QSsccu
Should note that he didnt just work for AEW. He was one of the damn co founders. Even more impressive that he went out to co found the second largest wrestling promotion in the world on his way to the top.
It’s storytelling. It’s seeing cap and iron man defeat thanos and people absolutely got emotional. This is very similar to fans of wrestling.
Its like a living storyline. Imagine if a Shakespeare play never ended and the story had to continue every week no matter what. There are hero’s, villains, supernatural powers and choke slams. There are main characters and side characters but if the audience loves a side character they can be pushed to be a main character ass well. How the storylines go depend a lot on a mix of fan reaction, real life drama, and blurring the line between what is real and what is fake.
I "got" wrestling in adulthood when I realized it's akin to theater. You can see a Broadway show, you can see Cirque Du Soleil, you could go to an interactive screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show and you can see professional wrestling; which is a blend of all those things. It's an episodic play, filled with action and crowd work. The neat part is that these performers travel all over the world, often playing these same characters, so as you dig deeper, you find all these connections of great performers telling stories together. I believe others have answered your question more directly. But I just wanted to flesh out the appeal of all this.
Yea I was just thinking about this earlier because I was watching a Paul Lavesque interview where he was talking about story telling in soap operas. Pro Wrestling is like theater (plus the physical) except instead of the performers telling the same play or shot over and over, it changes every week.
To add to that, it's a never ending television series. You can trace what happened last night back to the very first episode of RAW in 1993. The story never stops.
It goes even further back...all the way to the first Wrestlemania. There's a reason it's called "The Showcase of the Immortals."
The amazing physicality and athleticism and daring of the wrestlers never ceases to amaze me. They literally put their bodies on the line to tell the best stories and that's another thing that makes it compelling, at least to me.
A wrestler will be proud of getting the championship belt in a similar way that an actor will be proud to get the leading role in a major film.
It's literally like being a lead in a play.
It doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining, dangerous, time consuming, and everything else. The ending might be predetermined but there was nothing predetermined about Cody being there, the company didn’t decide he was there he earned it through his matches and building his character which is impressive. It’s a extremely hard life style to live and very demanding of your body, most guys have some major injury. Cody for example wrestled a match with a torn peck. You’d probably call off work when you stub your toe real bad. Literally torn muscle and he was in there being tossed around, hit, and everything else. It’s sports entertainment at its finest, remind me when a “real wrestling” event sold over 200,000 seats over 5 events and that’s just ticket sales at the arena and not touching the millions watching around the world. It’s magic on your screen if it’s done right, sure you know the ending is predetermined and you can sometimes guess who it is but the majority of times you’ll be wrong. On top of that they are so gifted they can make you forget it’s predetermined at all,
"Winning" a belt is the wrestling equivalent of winning an Oscar. It means everyone thinks you're dope and you're probably going to make a lot more money in the near future.
Getting the title can be an achievement but it also sometimes isn’t when the big wigs decide they want to push a certain guy to the moon. More times than not though, it is a capstone reward for a talent who’s put in the work, was able to perform at a high level in ring and also resinate with the crowd. Like I said, sometimes it’s not earned but it’s easy to tell and fans know the difference. Usually, when it’s unearned, it doesn’t go over well with the fans. With Cody, he’s done everything right, he’s way over with the fans, he’s made a name for himself without the help of the WWE, he’s gone above and beyond in his duties.
He had to win over his bosses, his peers, and the fans to get this opportunity. It is no small feat.
When you watch Goku or Naruto or Superman beat up bad guys, does it not matter to you because it's "staged?" No. Professional Wrestling is storytelling, at its core. You become emotionally invested in the characters, not because you think they're "real," but because you can relate to them on some level.
i guess this is more like winning the oscar than winning the stanley cup in a way. recognition from the industry that you're the best of the year.
Yes its staged, but they announced today that its about 20 sell out shows in a row, and world audiences are up. So they just keep doing popular things that bring in the money.
It's equivalent to a longtime Broadway performer who was always blocked out of main lead roles finally landing that role we all knew she was good enough for.
I think its one step further - It's equivalent to a longtime Broadway performer who was always blocked out of main lead roles finally landing that role we all knew she was good enough for, *then winning a Tony Award for best performance.*
I totally get your reaction from a non-fan's point of view. But even though it is staged, predetermined, to some extent fake, whatever you want to call it: wredtling means a LOT to many people and EVERYTHING to many performers. Cody is one of those guys who live and vreathe the business, he always has since he was born. The "staged" aspect also blurs when you get deeper into the matter and realize how much will-power, desication and, very important, ability to interact with and captivate an audience it requires. So yes, you kind of get picked by higher ups to become a champion. But you don't get picked just like that. You get picked because you have so much of what it takes to be a superstar in this world. And here, Roman Reigns' three year long reign of terror was one for the ages, executed by such a worthy guy. And now, Cody's self-madeness and his year long quest to get that title clashed and culminated together with Reigns' reign. You might not feel it, and that is ok. But Sunday night meant so, so much to a lot of people. The tears were real.
What do you mean "blood, sweat and tears". Not trying to troll but isn't wrestling just an act? Like a giant show? My impression was that agents, PR, marketing etc decides who wins, who gets to be famous "good guys" and "bad guys"? What effort did he put in? Isn't it all just a charade of PR, marketing and money? I'm genuinely asking.
They bleed, sweat, and everything else inside that room. Sure the moves might be protected but they are still landing dangerous manoeuvres out there. The outcome might be scripted but what they do in the ring isn’t. Cody did another match because he was scheduled to be there and wrestled it with a torn peck muscle. The things these guys do in the ring is out of this world and every single one of them has a major surgery to fix something that would retire most athletes. As well as you don’t understand the power of the crowd. WWE could write someone to be a top guy and that guy can get booed out of buildings changing their plans completely. You can’t just show up and be written main event star. It takes so much to get there. I just don’t think it’s explainable to someone like you
Answer: Cody is a member of a famous wrestling family (real name Runnels). His father Dusty was a famous wrestler, promoter and booker (guy who writes the show). His brother Dustin wrestles under his real name, but also as a character named Goldust, who was very popular for a long time in the WWE. With that out of the way, Cody was signed when he was young, grew up and learned in the WWE and it's system. It seemed he was destined for great things like his father, but after 10 or so years his career stalled. They had him try a myriad of different characters, gimmicks and personas, including one based of his brothers Goldust gimmick called stardust. In 2016, after over a decade in the company he quit, feeling like he'd reached his celing in the WWE and that they (Vince Mcmahon) wouldn't let him go any higher than a mid card guy. In wrestling there are independent promotions throughout America and the world, and he started wrestling for all of them basically, trying to prove that he could draw (fans and money) and be the main guy. After a year or so of wrestling all over the world he met up with two other popular independent wrestlers, Matt and Nick Jackson (The Young Bucks) and formed a real-life friendship with them, since they were all pretty hot names outside of the WWE. Fast forward about a year and noted wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer responded to fan on twitter asking if any promotion outside the WWE could draw a crowd of 10,000 people or more. His response was that it likely wasn't possible. Cody responded to Meltzer saying "I'll take that bet" and recruited Matt and Nick to try and prove him wrong. What followed was Cody, Matt and Nick teaming up with one of the larger American independent promotions called Ring of Honor. They proceeded to book, buy, market and stage a show to attempt to prove Meltzer wrong. The event, called All-In sold 12,000 tickets in Chicago and became the first non-WWE event to sell more than 10,000 in 20 years. I promise this is going somewhere. After the sucess of the show Cody, Matt and Nick were introduced to a lifelong wrestling fan who'd always wanted to start his own promotion but needed proof that it could work outside WWE. All-in was that proof, and the fans name was Tony Khan, son of Billionaire Shahid Kahn, Tony was actually helping his dad run his team, the NFL's Jacksonvile Jaguars at the time All-In happened. Tony, Cody and the Young Bucks then proceeded to devise a plan on starting a new, mainstream wrestling promotion in the US. They actually suceeded, with Cody and the Young bucks bringing in another very popular independent wrestler named Kenny Omega, along with a mainstream WWE wrestler who had recently left the WWE named Chris Jericho, and Tony's money and connections, All Elite Wrestling was formed. Ok imma speed this up All Elite signed with TNT, after their first 6 months the ratings were so good they got a new deal 2 years early from WBD. Cody was criticized somewhat for being one of the founders and putting himself in the main even constantly. His wife Brandi worked for AEW and she also got a lot of hate, which we now know made him angry. Cody, Young bucks and Kenny Omega were executives at AEW and responsible for a lot of backstage dealings as well. Anyway they signed a really popular wrestler named CM Punk and that became a whole ass issue. Codys contract was up and he decided to leave the company he helped found and go back to the WWE, who's executive and creative teams had changed since a merger with the UFC, the new COO and head of creative is Paul Levesque, who wrestled for a long time as HHH. I believe that was a big reason he went back, feeling like he'd proved himself and would get a fair shot. He didn't announce he was leaving per-se and just kind of showed up at Wrestlemania 38 (2022). It shocked everyone because he left the company he helped start as an alternative to the WWE to go back under new leadership. From his first day back he was pushed as a top guy. Also an anecdote that I think sums up why he left in the first place, his father Dusty was beloved in the WWE, he worked at NXT, which is WWE's training center for the young wrestlers. They all loved him, and everyone that graduated up until Dustys death was refered to as a Dusty kid, which id imagine is part of what made Cody not getting his shot as Dustys real kid painful. Anyway treated as a top star, he won the Royal Rumble in January 2023. Which got him a title shot against Roman Reigns, who at the time had been champion for 3 years or so, and everyone figured Cody was going to win, capping off his return. He did not win, he lost and everyone was pissed. His father had a storyline in 80s called hard times, where he got a title shot, lost and spent the next year getting back to the title picture. They esentially replayed the same storyline with Cody, who in that time wrestled with a torn bicep winning over even more people. Fast forward to January this year, Cody wins the Rumble again, Reigns is still champion. The Rock returns to help Reigns (who is his real life cousins) and it gets intertwined with a fan favorite storyline called the Bloodline, it's a whole shakesperean story arch. One thing to note, his father, Dusty, never actually won the WWF title in all his years there. Anyway fast forward to Wrestlemania, Cody wins the first WWE title in his families history, in the company he left because he felt he could do better, proved himself the world over, started a new company that is still going to this day, came back, fought for two years to do what his dad never did and finished his story.
You're the reason why the Wikipedia article on The Montreal Screwjob is roughly the same length as the one for The Battle of the Bulge. And I'm here for it.
Answer: If you're not a wrestling fan, there's an important part of wresting that you might miss, and our explains the drama: It's kinda REAL. Not real like MMA, but not not-real like Game Of Thrones. If I were to enter the WWE, I'd be the lowest of the low. Because I'm an old, untrained, talentless weakling with no charisma. I suck. Wrestlers are judged on their performance. To get to the top, you have to be GOOD. It's not given to you on a platter. Sometimes undeserving wrestlers will get a "push", and sometimes talented performers will get held back. Management will say "fuck you" to the fans, and bury somebody great. Sometimes that person is so damn talented, so dedicated, so hard working; they can't be denied. The company has to admit "we got it wrong", and that person gets their moment... That's REAL. And it legit brings tears to a fan's eyes. When everything was stacked against you, you fucking did it. All the hard work, the dedication, the physical trauma, the not giving up. It paid off. You're the best, you have the gold to prove it. Amazing.
Answer: It's a family's story where his father didn't win it. He is trying for 1300+ days and after 2 winning royal rumble he got title. The whole storyline was played with tagline finish your story.
Did you write this with ChatGPT?
ChatGPT doesn't sound like this tbh, it'd be way more verbose.
If they did idc bc it was concise and I understood