Cody Rhodes apparently gave some real thought to stepping into MMA at one point, but that idea didn’t exactly make it very far at home. The moment he brought it up to Brandi Rhodes, he got one of the rare hard no’s of their relationship.
Speaking on the Double Coverage podcast, Cody was asked whether he had ever seriously considered MMA. Long before UFC became the monster it is today, Cody had already gotten a small taste of another combat sport through Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Cody trained in BJJ while he was still involved in amateur wrestling, although he wasn’t about to pretend he was some secret submission wizard. By his own assessment, he was simply “okay” at it, and the training mainly helped keep him active during wrestling’s offseason.
“At the time, you know, UFC was moving, but nothing like it is now in terms of the juggernaut it’s become. But it hadn’t fully, at the time I was in high school, hadn’t fully taken. So, I would go do Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and this is before there was Brazilian jiu-jitsu everywhere. And I was okay. I was okay.”
His amateur wrestling background obviously gave Cody something to work with, but he also pointed out the differences between folkstyle wrestling and other disciplines. Ultimately, he feels he stopped at pretty much the right time.
“But also, folkstyle wrestling, you don’t slam a guy. You don’t get to the manipulation. Freestyle, you get points for how high they might go. But I was just okay. And it helped me in the offseason. And I ended it right where I needed to end it.”
And if WWE ever needed somebody with a wrestling background to lead the charge into legitimate combat sports, Cody doesn’t think he’d be the first choice anyway. He immediately pointed across the WWE locker room at Chad Gable and his much stronger amateur credentials.
“Whenever people bring that up, I’m always of the thought, yep, that was—I was good. But Chad Gable, he was an Olympic alternate. If we’re looking for someone who’s going to lead the fight, it’d be Chad over there. You know what I mean?”
Still, Cody did wonder what might happen if he actually committed himself to MMA training. Apparently, he even floated the idea to Brandi once to see what she thought about him giving it a shot. That conversation ended pretty damn quickly.
“But I thought about it. I mentioned it one time to Brandi. I was like, ‘I wonder if I trained and could do it.’ And that was a rare time where she was, like, hard no.”
That reaction actually caught Cody off guard because Brandi apparently doesn’t usually shut down his more unusual ambitions. Cody joked that maybe his wife simply knew exactly what would happen if he ever stepped inside the cage.
“And I thought, man, she never really says no about my wacky ambitions, but maybe she just knew I’d get decimated or something. But that was a hard no.”
So while Cody at least entertained the idea of seeing how far his wrestling background could take him in MMA, Brandi apparently saved everyone from ever finding out. And judging by Cody’s own assessment of his BJJ skills, he doesn’t seem too upset that she did.
Do you think Cody Rhodes could have made a legitimate run in MMA with the right training, or was Brandi right to immediately shut that idea down? 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.
