Cody Rhodes On Not Wanting To Use “Cody Rhodes” For Wrestling Purposes
AEW EVP Cody Rhodes joined Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone on a recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast where he discussed the recent news of him gaining back the “Cody Rhodes” trademark after WWE cancelled their trademark filing for Rhodes’ in-ring name. On the podcast, Rhode admitted hat he doesn’t want to use the name in wrestling but rather for outside projects because it makes things easier for producers to identify him.
“I think people are going to be pissed because I don’t want the name for a wrestling purposes,” Rhodes admitted. “I wanted it for outside project purposes because outside projects don’t get it when they’re like, ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ And then, well, it’s Cody. ‘Well, what’s your last name?’ It’s Runnels / Rhodes. ‘Which is it? What are we putting on this?’ What’s SAG? Oh, okay, yeah, and then they get confused. You never want to come into someone else’s house, which as a wrestler, you’re always guests in their world, and have pre-existing legal issues.
“They’re not just going to put ‘The American Nightmare Cody’ as much as I would want them to, but wrestling, I like just ‘Cody.’ That was a very positive and great thing that just recently happened. Wrestling’s greatest lawyer, who I like a lot, but he represents too many people, Dawkins. I’m sure he represents Pharaoh at this point. So Dawkins did an outstanding job.”
Edwards pointed out that wrestling copyrights can be weird, and Rhodes agreed. While he could not go into detail about the process, he talked about how there were no hard feelings from either side.
“It’s very weird, and even on Unrestricted, that is actually restricted information,” Rhodes noted. “But I will say, it was a very positive experience across the board. No hard feelings. I’m thankful for everyone who was involved, WWE and AEW. I worked for WWE for 11 years. So a lot of good memories so no hard feelings.”
As Schiavone was talking about Rhodes’ aspiration, he brought up The Mandalorian since Rhodes is an avid Star Wars and Star Trek fan. However, Rhodes pointed out that WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Sasha Banks is already on the show, so he’ll have to find something else to be in.
“Well, a wrestler already got it, so I’ve got to find a different property,” Rhodes pointed out. “Well, there’s [Star] Trek. There’s also the Obi[-Wan Kenobi] series. She took it. She wins. You think a production’s gonna go, ‘We need two wrestlers’?”
Rhodes then talked about his plan to wrestle five more years until he is 40 years old. He also discussed his political aspirations and his desire to run for Senator of Georgia.
“Well, what I want, for the next five years, I want to wrestle at the absolute highest level I can wrestle [and] be part of the building of new stars, but I’m not going to apologize if my run keeps continuing at its rate,” Rhodes admitted. “I’m going to milk it. I’m going to ride the lightning bolt, until I can’t anymore. I want five years of that. I said 40. It’s a weird age, but I just knew too many old wrestlers, my dad was one of them, that I just hated that they were still beating themselves up.
“Isn’t your brother 50?,” Edwards pointed out. “51?”
“He’s very old but great and responsible for the most recent rating that was over a million, so we’ll give him his credit,” Rhodes acknowledged. “But I want to do that, and I want to stay Executive Vice President of All Elite Wrestling, I told Tony this, until I die. This is the end of my wrestling career. I can’t necessarily go back. The others can change.
“I really can’t, and I want to stay here fully when I’m done wrestling in five years, but I also want to parlay it into some third-party projects. Stuff like ‘Go Big Show’ and acting of course. Now, Tony’s management’s got me this great acting coach, and they’ve shopped me around, which is beautiful, and I want to be part of that as long as it doesn’t take me away from here. And then I want to run for Senate in the great state of Georgia, and then, that’s it.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.