Cody Rhodes knows exactly what it’s like to fall down the wrestling internet rabbit hole, because he used to be right there with everyone else. Eventually, though, Cody realized all that negativity was starting to mess with how much he actually enjoyed watching wrestling.
Speaking on the Double Coverage podcast, Cody explained that when he first discovered wrestling forums, he loved finding other people who were just as obsessed with the business as he was. He started hanging around different forums, but the fun eventually wore off once the constant negativity started affecting his own viewing experience.
“No, you know, you get caught in the rabbit hole. Like, we were speaking about AI earlier. You were like, I had a kick. So, I had that same kick when I discovered that there were like-minded wrestling fans online, and I was on all the forums, and then I was like, ‘This is too negative.’”
At that point, Cody decided he was better off getting away from those discussions. It wasn’t about avoiding criticism of himself either — he simply didn’t want online wrestling talk changing how he personally watched the product.
“This is really affecting my viewing experience, so I’m not going to frequent this anymore.”
That doesn’t mean Cody thinks negative opinions from wrestling fans somehow don’t count. He was actually pretty careful about that, explaining that he never wants to dismiss someone simply because their opinion comes from a smaller group online.
“You never want to say anything. You never want to say, ‘Well, that’s not real.’ You never want to say, ‘Oh, that’s a small percentage,’ because I don’t want to dismiss a fan and their opinion.”
And Cody seems perfectly fine with people thinking whatever the hell they want about him. Whether someone hates his wrestling, thinks he sucks or just wants to insult how he looks, he believes being a fan doesn’t come with some mandatory set of opinions.
“If they hate you, they hate you. If they think you’re fat, they think you’re fat. If they think you suck, they think you suck. There’s no wrong way to be a fan.”
His bigger issue is X specifically. Cody believes conversations that feel absolutely massive on the platform can actually exist almost entirely inside that bubble rather than representing how the broader wrestling audience feels.
“But what I can say is the conversations that take place on, say, X specifically, they only take place there.”
And apparently wrestling isn’t the only fandom where Cody has noticed it. After paying more attention to online conversations surrounding movies, he’s found plenty of the same darkness and arguments over what people are apparently allowed to enjoy. Cody’s solution is pretty simple: maybe everybody needs more puppy videos.
“It’s just dark out there, huh? And I don’t know if cinema—I’ve been, you know, now that I’m watching, you know, with a movie, what some of its chats and discussions look like. Just, it’s a little dark, you know? Like, don’t be afraid to put up a little puppy video every now and then.”
Cody even knows exactly what kind of content he’d rather see. Give him two huskies barking trash talk at each other instead of another argument telling him why he was wrong for enjoying something.
“Like, I got the two huskies biting each other, and they’re doing trash talk where they’re saying, ‘Run up.’ That, I like that. I need that in my life, you know? I don’t need a deep opinion on what I should or shouldn’t do, or if I liked something, I shouldn’t have liked it.”
Cody isn’t telling wrestling fans to stop criticizing WWE or pretending negative opinions don’t matter. He just doesn’t want the loudest conversations on X convincing people that everyone watching wrestling feels exactly the same way — and he’d apparently be perfectly happy replacing a few of those arguments with dogs yelling “run up” at each other.
Do you think wrestling discussions on social media have become too negative, or is that simply part of being a wrestling fan online? Let us know what you think 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.
