Cody Rhodes had tears in his eyes when John Cena gave him one of the biggest compliments of his career. Then Cena turned around days later and said their WrestleMania 41 match stunk — and Cody couldn’t help but laugh at how quickly his mentor brought him back down to earth.
Speaking on ESPN Radio’s Unsportsmanlike, Cody was asked about the emotional moment on RAW when Cena introduced him as the first participant in the John Cena Classic. Cena called Rhodes WWE’s “QB1” and even suggested Cody was doing the job better than he ever did. Cody admitted that hearing that from Cena genuinely got to him.
“It got me. It got me. And then he said something else this week where he said we stunk the joint out in Vegas at WrestleMania 41. So my heart is pulled in. He always, you know what I mean? It’s like, okay, I felt great. He got me. I had tears in my eyes standing there in Brooklyn with him. And the next thing you know, okay, we stunk the joint out. All right.”
Cody doesn’t seem bothered by Cena knocking their WrestleMania match either. If anything, he sees the emotional whiplash as part of what makes Cena such a good mentor — he’ll give you your flowers, but he’s not going to let you get too comfortable with them.
“That’s what they do, though. That’s what the great mentors do. You know, they never can give you the full [praise], and they shouldn’t. I’m mean to mine.”
When the hosts pointed out that a mentor needs to know which buttons to push, Cody agreed, saying, “Yeah, exactly. Get them to the finish line. That’s all you’re supposed to do.” Cena’s criticism came during a recent interview with Uncrowned, where he looked back at his WrestleMania 41 match against Cody in Las Vegas. Cena captured his record-setting 17th world championship that night, but he has no problem admitting the actual match didn’t live up to expectations.
“And then I’ll look back, especially on that last year because the retirement tour did have a lot of eyes, and I’ll say I took a big swing at WrestleMania and we stunk up the joint. We failed.”
Cena believes the important part was what happened next. Instead of pretending WrestleMania worked, he felt they course-corrected and eventually delivered when Cody regained the championship in their Street Fight at SummerSlam.
“But what did I do? I got back up, we dusted ourselves off, course-corrected the ship, and we culminated with a fantastic finishing of the story, as Cody would put it, at SummerSlam.”
Cody clearly understands the game Cena is playing with him. Getting called WWE’s QB1 meant enough to bring him to tears, but Cena apparently wasn’t about to let his successor walk around feeling too good about himself for very long.
What do you make of John Cena building Cody Rhodes up one moment and humbling him the next? 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.
