One would think that after his recent departure from WWE, his forgettable final run as Goldust’s spin-off, and the fact that he’s a general for the militant Bullet Club, that Cody Rhodes wouldn’t hesitate when it came to taking a swipe at Vince McMahon. Well, we’d all be wrong.
Cody opened up a Q&A session from his Twitter account and one fan asked if Vince unfairly holds back freshly promoted NXT talent, a common urban legend amongst die hard WWE fans. But not only did The American Nightmare kill that notion, Rhodes did it by providing a candid account of his shortcoming while in WWE.
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He doesn’t hold anybody back. A lot of times it’s hard for fans to accept that some of their favorites have a ways to go or that they become lazy after they get that first LE check. Stardust for example didn’t go beyond tag gold cuz’ I wasn’t improving & I also got outta’ shape. https://t.co/PJstDITaMp
— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) February 5, 2018
With revealing response, Rhodes takes down one of the bigger misconceptions in wrestling. The czar of a wrestling conglomerate, Vince McMahon is easily painted as a cruel tyrant who gets pleasure from snubbing out the careers of those not named Roman Reigns or John Cena. Even further, as the pattern of NXT call-ups flopping on the main roster continues, it would appear that this may be Vince’s personal doing. Afterall, if he makes all of the decision in WWE, then that means he’s responsible for every success and failure, right?
Wrong.
While Vince does carry an omnipotent presence, the success of a given wrestler is still highly dependent on his or her ability to make lasting impressions. Even though Vince and his creative team are in charge of crafting opportunities, who gets them and who doesn’t is largely determined by fan reaction.
So, it’s easy to blame Vince for the shortcomings of Bayley, Bo Dallas or even Finn Balor, but that’s not taking the entire picture into consideration.
As Cody points out, his Stardust character hit the wall not because Vince planned for it to die, but because Cody personally stopped investing in the gimmick. And in WWE, a stagnate wrestler may as well be dead.
Next time you want to rip off a tweet that exposes Vince McMahon for being an NXT oppressor just remember that we as fans never know the whole story.
