When Cody Rhodes steps into the ring to face Anthony Ogogo at AEW Double or Nothing on Sunday, May 30, he won’t be doing so as the American Nightmare. For one night only, Rhodes will drop the moniker he’s carefully cultivated since leaving WWE in 2016 to, instead, take on the nickname of his dad, the late great “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes.
During a promo on AEW Dynamite on May 12, Rhodes let the world know he was borrowing his father’s identity for one night only at Double or Nothing. Now, in an interview with GameSpot’s pro wrestling podcast Wrestle Buddies, Rhodes has revealed what drove the decision–and pulled back the curtain a little on how he creates his promos in the first place.
“This is probably gonna sound not cool, because a lot of wrestlers–especially wrestlers from my dad’s era–will lie to you and say, ‘Oh, I just came up with that promo right there on the spot,’ which is bulls***,” the former TNT Champion admitted. “But whatever. I workshop my promos heavily for weeks on end. We have a full focus group for them, as crazy as that sounds. This is a data-based company, so I workshop everything I do. And because my promos have been held to a really high standard–people pick at them and find things in them and they put a microscope on them, which I love. With that in mind, when I was doing the promo I couldn’t come up with a finish.”
Without the ending to his promo, Rhodes was at a loss. To him, it would be the same thing as a match with a bad ending. “The match is the promo, the promo is the match,” he said. Then it came to him.
