During his appearance on “Talk is Jericho”, Dustin Rhodes discussed how frequently he pitched a storyline with Cody to Vince McMahon, how it felt to be on the roster but not be used and how he perceives his legacy to be. Here are the highlights:
On How It Felt To Not Be Used:
When you’re…not necessarily held back, you know what I’m saying, but there’s so much going on and creative has nothing for you and you’re sitting back there and you’re pitching these ideas and they get to Vince. Some of them do, some of them do not, then finally you just have to go to Vince and pitch these ideas and he says yes or no and I get it and I understand and I know the deal. But when you’re sitting back and you’re watching everything that you know you could go out and do, and probably do better, it’s frustrating to sit back there and just go, ‘Dammit man, there’s nothing at TV.’ Here I am, I have to travel, I have to spend all this money on hotels and rental cars, you got nothing for me.
On What He Thinks His Legacy Will Be:
I love wrestling, man. It’s in my blood. It’s in our DNA and it’s…I wanna be one of the best. I wanna be remembered as one of the very best to ever walk away from the business. I believe I’ve left a legacy that’s pretty cool and it’s good. It’s not as great as it could be but I don’t feel bad about anything I’ve done in the business, you know what I’m saying? So it’s all been there for me, everything that I have done. I believe that every single time that when I do go out there, I never let the fans down. I put on a good show. Even if it’s three minutes, if it’s twenty minutes. You go out there and you work hard. That’s our work ethic. You give 110%. You don’t half-ass shit. I don’t half-ass stuff, even when I’m in a damn bad mood and I don’t feel like doing a certain something or what, you go out there and you perform because these people paid to see you and they paid for a show and you give them that show. You entertain them the best you can.
On How Often He Went To Vince On A Storyline Idea With Cody:
Well 2012 I think was the first time that I pitched it, 2011, I can’t remember. I had the shoulder surgeries and I was the producer at this point and backstage and in the meetings. I pitched it in the meeting and Vince just kinda scoffed at it and you go on and you kinda pitch it again at the next year and the next.
On His Relationship With Cody:
There’s a big age difference in Cody and myself, seventeen years, so there’s not a lot that him and I have in common. I was there for him in his high school wrestling days and then, you know, when he was growing up a little bit and I always look at it like this: when he was a baby, I put him on my shoulder, when mom was visiting the kids or something to burp him and for that split second, that moment right there, I was his protector. I always felt like, I am his big brother, I want to protect him. But Cody looked at me a little differently. He saw…I don’t know exactly what, which caused a little rift between him and I. Could have been me falling out with my father for a short time and not being there and just doing what I needed to do to get my head clear. Maybe he didn’t see that, you know? But we weren’t as close growing up as we should have been. That’s the number one thing that I want is to be close to my brother now more than ever after this because I told him that I would come in here and I would do this and he had some concerns because him and I had had our little problems. Sometimes in the past when we were tagging, if something wasn’t done right I flew off the lid and I got a little hot-headed and I screamed at him. That’s not right. I understand, but when you’re in the heat of the moment you want things to be perfect and things aren’t perfect then you lose your shit a little bit and I’m sorry for that. I apologize. I’m sorry, Cody, for doing that.
On Being Told That A Match Against Cody Wasn’t Big Enough For Wrestlemania:
Once I talked to Cody about these Wrestlemania matches we were wanting, to do it on a big stage, because we really believed in it, and we kept getting told no, man. We kept getting told no. It’s not big enough. And I had that said to me more times than I wanna hear, man. I think it’s wrong. I think definitely you can go out there on that big show. I mean you look at the seven-hour show that they put on it’s just, I watched this past year and I was part of the year before that and man….why not? Why could we be in here? There’s no reason why. If you just got behind the story and you pushed it just a little bit, the interest would be there. And I think that over the years, us being told no, no, no, no, no, that finally it came to a head with the people that were ready for it. Because our first match, we weren’t given Wrestlemania, we were given Fastlane, a first-year PPV. It was horrible. Neither one of us liked it, but it was my fault because I chose a certain direction to go in that match and we went in that direction and it just did not click. It wasn’t special. I think we were both upset because it was not Wrestlemania and here we are stuck on Fastlane, which sucked. And we weren’t anywhere close to the main event. It was just like, no story behind it, put ’em out there, let brother do brother, see where it lays, and it was horrible.
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Credit: Talk is Jericho. H/T 411Mania.
