Cody Rhodes was one Bruce Prichard veto away from making his WWE return dressed like the American Nightmare had just robbed a saloon. Cody revealed that he seriously wanted to come back wearing all black with a black cowboy hat — and somehow, almost everyone he trusted thought it was a good idea.
Rhodes told the story while speaking with Simone Johnson on What You Wanna Talk About?, where a conversation about cowboys suddenly turned into Cody revealing a WWE look that thankfully never made it through Gorilla. He asked Simone to put on her “booker brain” and imagine him adding a cowboy hat to his character, and she immediately connected it to Dusty Rhodes. Cody then revealed exactly what he had planned for his return.
“How would you feel about my character with a cowboy hat? I would think of your dad instantly. Yes, right? Yep. Okay, well, we were really close. I’m trying to imagine you on that—black hat—with a cowboy hat. So I was coming back. It can work. Okay. Yeah. So I was coming back at a show, I believe it was Logan Paul and John Cena in the ring, and I was jumping them after I’d been away.”
This wasn’t just Cody thinking about throwing on some random cowboy hat backstage either. He had the whole thing mapped out in his head, right down to why he felt he had enough cowboy credentials to pull it off.
“I thought about wearing all black with a black cowboy hat. The hat was on flying. Yeah, it definitely would’ve just been a quick look. Right. But my logic in it was my dad quarter horsed. They’re from Austin. I read this dumb horse book as a kid. I’m gonna find this horse book? Right, I’m from Georgia. I have some ownership of it.”
Cody apparently liked the idea enough to run it past the people he trusts with his character, and this is where things get even funnier. Three out of four actually gave Cowboy Cody the green light.
“You’d be surprised, three out of the four guys that I speak to about everything gave me a thumbs up. It was just one who said, ‘I don’t think that’s gonna work, I got to be honest.’ He said, ‘I think that’s gonna be distracting.’”
That one person was Bruce Prichard, and he wasn’t about to let Cody turn a major WWE return into cowboy cosplay. Cody admitted Prichard was the person who ultimately shut the whole thing down.
“The one who told me it was gonna be distracting and made the decision ultimately was Bruce Prichard.”
Prichard’s argument was brutally simple. The hat was going to become the story instead of whatever Cody was actually supposed to be doing on television.
“He said, ‘I think this is gonna distract from what we do.’”
The best part is Cody didn’t even fight him on it afterward. Once he actually said the whole scenario out loud — returning from an absence, jumping into something involving John Cena and Logan Paul, while suddenly wearing a giant black cowboy hat — even Cody realized Bruce probably saved him from himself.
“He’s right. I think in that instance, I think, you’re already coming back, you’re jumping people, and you got a cowboy hat on? Yeah. That’s a lot.”
Simone still tried to rescue Cowboy Cody by suggesting he could slowly introduce the hat during an appearance or even on his podcast. Cody instead turned the whole failed pitch into a lesson about why wrestlers need people backstage willing to tell them when an idea absolutely sucks.
“You’ve heard this before, everybody needs to be produced. And I’m so grateful to have the people I have in my life and in management to produce me, ’cause nine out of 10 of my ideas are bad.”
That fits with what Cody has previously said about his WWE creative process. Rhodes has explained that Bruce Prichard, Michael Hayes and Paul Heyman all bring different perspectives when helping shape his ideas, and apparently Prichard’s role occasionally includes preventing the WWE Champion from walking onto television looking like he’s about to challenge somebody to a duel at high noon. Cody still defended his ability to occasionally come up with something great, but even he couldn’t promise the cowboy hat would have been one of those winners.
“I’m good for a banger idea, but nine out of 10, the cowboy hat would’ve been distracting, who knows? But I’m good for an idea.”
Bruce Prichard may have killed Cowboy Cody before he ever got out of the stable, but the fact that three other people actually approved this thing might be the funniest part of the entire story. Somewhere in an alternate WWE universe, Cody Rhodes came back dressed in black, tipped his cowboy hat at John Cena and Logan Paul, and forced everyone watching to ask the exact same question: what the hell is he wearing?
Would Cody Rhodes have somehow made the black cowboy hat work, or did Bruce Prichard save him from a look WWE fans would have roasted forever? Let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
