Rhodes says he’s having the most fun he’s ever had in his life right now. Moore asks him about the legality of using ‘Cody Rhodes’ as his indie name, given that WWE owns the rights to it. Rhodes says he’s sure that if he approached WWE and asked to use that name they’d let him, but he honestly has no issue going by ‘Cody’. He thinks there’s something cool about that singular name, and it especially works in ROH and NJPW.
Lawler mentions that when his son ‘Brian Christopher’ debuted in WWE, he really didn’t want him to use the Lawler name because that would have created a very difficult situation for him. Rhodes believes that his brother Dustin had a harder time with that than he did. When Dustin broke into the business in the early 90’s he looked like Dusty and people expected the same type of performance from Dustin.
By the time Cody came along, enough time had passed that he wasn’t really expected to act like his father. He also doesn’t really look like his father so there wasn’t that distinct, visual resemblance that made things tough for Dustin many years earlier. Rhodes says his father always wanted him to be himself, and to create his own mark on the business.
