once upon a turnbuckle...

In response to the crowd’s chanting “We Want Cody” as part of the viral campaign to secure him the spot he earned in the main event of that year’s WrestleMania, Cody said those words after winning a Texas Bull Rope match against Shinsuke Nakamura, blood still on his face as he addressed the crowd.

“Well, all I can say is this, since I was a little boy who grew up loving everything- for you to want me is special because I have always wanted you.”

His voice cracked as he said those words, clearly feeling something real and vulnerable in that moment and I have a feeling it might have been just as personal for the man behind the character as well. So let's talk about it. Let’s talk about why those words were so impactful for me and other Cody fans, people who’ve followed his career from the start, people who gave him a chance along the way; let’s talk about how he got here.

Nearly twenty years ago, Cody debuted on Monday Night RAW as the plucky son of a Legend at the young age of twenty-two, dead set on defending his father from the Legend Killer, which he wasn’t able to do and after just a few weeks, his father’s in-ring career was over. It was the kind of debut any young wrestler would dream of, the problem was Cody was a smaller guy for that time, he was cute, he appealed more to that teenage girl demographic that’s always been seen as a joke than he did to any die hard “serious” fans even if they were fans of his father. Unfortunately, he wasn’t someone anyone was going to take seriously as a threat.

He wasn’t big or jacked enough for the fans of Batista or Triple H, he wasn’t cool enough for the fans of Randy Orton or CM Punk, he wasn’t marketed to kids enough to be like a John Cena or Jey Uso now, which given how popular he is with that demographic now just proves how well he could have done with the right push even then, he was always just Cody Rhodes. A solid midcard guy doing solid work and putting in his time hoping to catch that big break. 

He got a decent push when he joined Legacy with Randy Orton and Ted Dibiase Jr., two other men from wrestling families, but he was always the fall guy, he was always the one taking the pins, he was the pretty one. Full offence, but they wanted to push Ted “Yes Girl, Give Us Nothing!” DiBiase Jr over him. Why? Because he was an inch or two taller and more traditionally masculine? He didn’t have a more “appealing” body, he was nowhere near Cody’s level of charisma and character work, it’s just an example of how little value WWE saw in Cody as a main event star from the beginning. 

After that group imploded and they all went their separate ways, Randy came out of it as the face, the one getting all the cheers, despite the abuse he put Cody and Ted through. Ted drifted around RAW and Cody was sent to SmackDown to do “grooming tips” videos as Dashing Cody Rhodes. It was more of a push than he’d ever got as a solo wrestler up until then, he was getting solid screen time but he was still a heel, he was still not a genuine contender for a World Title, he still wasn’t taken seriously, he still didn’t have the crowd behind him. By now it had been over three years of near constant boos, he didn’t even get his first t-shirt until that year. 

Instead he was doing tutorials on how to shave your body, or put on lip gloss, or even how to apply deodorant, and he was giving it his all. He was doing the best work he’d ever done, he was killing it as the guy coming out and roasting the crowds, but that doesn’t exactly get you fan support, especially if you’re pretty, and especially in 2010 when “metrosexual” was still a joke.

So he kept working, he went on to do incredible character work the next year as Undashing Cody Rhodes, a broken man convinced he was a hideous monster. That was the year he won his first solo WWE title. Winning the Intercontinental Championship is seen as a stepping stone to a world title, it’s seen as something you get when you’re heading for the top, only Cody never got there. Even after winning it a second time, Cody never reached any further than that.

It wasn’t until 2013 when, and only for a brief moment, he really had the crowd behind him for the first time, he had a taste of what that felt like- but all that came crashing down the following year when Stardust debuted.

Now don’t get me wrong, I adore Stardust, I think it was some of Cody’s best work, he put everything into that character, but Stardust was never going to be more than a novelty act to sell gloves and masks to kids. Professionally, he was at the lowest point in his career, after nearly ten years of struggling to gain a foothold, nearly a decade of working hard and giving it everything, this was it. This is where he was at and this was where he was going to stay.

Laying on his back, looking up at the lights night after night as rotating members of the roster pinned him. 

No closer to a world title, no closer to main eventing, no closer to hearing an arena full of people chant his name like every little kid who grew up wanting to be a Wrestler dreamed of than he ever was. Stardust is still the butt of jokes online, people who want to disparage him in comment sections will still call him “Stardust” as if it’s an insult, as if the work he put into those three years of hell isn’t impressive and admirable.

So he left. 

So he walked away from his dream, he walked away from the chance of ever holding a world title in WWE. He gave it his all and because he was too small, or too pretty, or too childish, or too feminine, or too much of a joke to ever be taken seriously by the large majority of fans as a Star, he left to prove to the world that they were wrong about him. 

And he did. 

People loved him. People cheered for him as a face, they booed him as a heel, they got on their feet for him, they showed up for him because he had so much more to offer as a wrestler than WWE ever allowed him to show. He sold out shows, he became a star. For the first time in his career he was a main eventer, he was holding the top titles, not because they were handed to him because of his name or his history at WWE but because he put in the work and earned them.

So coming back to this company who didn’t see any real value in him for nearly a decade and finally, finally getting the crowd support that he’s always wanted, that any wrestler wants, but was always just out of his grasp, at a time when he was at risk of losing his shot at that title again and being pushed out of the spot he’d worked nearly twenty years for, it was special. It was beautiful, it was personal, it was the culmination of a decades long struggle to be taken seriously as the Main Event Star he was born to be.

“I have always wanted you.”

Cody works his ass off for that company, for all of us as fans, and whether you like him or not, he’s an incredible performer. If you’ve ever felt something watching him work, whether that’s joy or hatred, he’s making an impact. Every time he gets in that ring or on that mic he’s still coming out to prove to an audience who for years, never took him seriously or really seemed to care about him at all, that he’s earned our support, that he’s worthy of our support, and I think he’s more than proven that.

Every time he looks surprised that people are cheering for him or chanting his name, even still after the incredible run he’s been on the last few years, I think about that young guy who was undervalued and treated like a joke, I think about that guy in smeared face paint looking up at the lights who could only dream having a moment like this, and I am so proud of him for getting here. 

Cody always talks about how he doesn’t expect it to last as if he can’t believe it himself how much the WWE audience has embraced him, not because he didn’t earn it but because he was never given the opportunity to show he was worthy of it. He was never given that star-making push that some people get, whether it works out or not, but I think Cody’s proven that all he needed was someone to believe in him and give him a chance, even if it had to be himself.