Hall Of Famer Calls For Major Cody Rhodes WWE Character Change

A WWE Hall of Famer wants Cody Rhodes to make a change to his character.

As a former 2-time Undisputed WWE Champion, Cody Rhodes is one of the most popular wrestlers in the company. For the past four years, Cody Rhodes has been the top babyface in WWE, although there are several other wrestlers who generate huge responses from WWE fans as well.

At the final WWE SmackDown before the Royal Rumble, the fans in Riyadh actually booed Cody Rhodes when he was in the ring, although it wasn’t the whole crowd. However, it was still noticeable, and Cody looked surprised by it.

After being a top babyface in WWE for the last four years, there are certainly some fans who want to see Cody embrace the dark side by becoming a heel, which is a role he was in earlier in his WWE career, but not at the main event level.

Rikishi Feels It’s A Good Time For Cody Rhodes To Turn Heel

WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi, who is the father of WWE superstars The Usos and Solo Sikoa, suggested on his Off The Top podcast that Cody Rhodes should be a heel.

“I think Cody’s [time as a] babyface has probably ran it’s course.

I feel like it’s probably a good time for – business-wise and for the brand of Cody Rhodes – to kind of maybe take a ride on the wild side, right? And then we’ll see where we go from there.”

Cody Rhodes has developed issues with fellow SmackDown star Jacob Fatu, who is Rikishi’s nephew, and clearly, a lot of fans like Fatu, who was originally a heel when he started in WWE.

“They brought Jacob [Fatu] in to obviously be a heel, like a monster heel, and the fans just slowly kind of switched Jacob to this mega-top babyface.”

Rikishi went on to point out that with the Royal Rumble taking place on January 31st, it could be a time to set up WrestleMania plans for big names like Cody, Jacob, and others.

“It’s the beginning of 2026, it’s January, the Royal Rumble is around the corner, we have no idea what’s going to play out in the Royal Rumble, so I mean, once we see that? It can almost let you know what the plans are going to be for a certain talent moving into WrestleMania.”

Cody Rhodes and Jacob Fatu are in the Men’s Royal Rumble match, which could see them collide. The Royal Rumble streams live on Saturday, January 31, at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, exclusively on ESPN in the United States and Netflix internationally.

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