Road Dogg Didn’t See A Lot Of Potential In Cody Rhodes
WWE Hall of Famer Road Dogg has admitted he didn’t always see the potential to be a massive wrestling star in ‘The American Nightmare’ Cody Rhodes.
Cody Rhodes returned to WWE at WrestleMania 38 in early 2022 as a returning hero after several years away from the company. Unlike most, Rhodes made an even bigger name for himself outside WWE and was one of the forces behind the formation of All Elite Wrestling in 2019.
Before he left WWE in 2016, Cody Rhodes was best known for his tag team work with a variety of partners that included his brother Dustin Rhodes, then still competing as Goldust. It was during this time that Rhodes shared the ring with a resurgent Road Dogg and Billy Gunn who were having one last run as the New Age Outlaws.
Speaking on his Oh…You Didn’t Know? podcast, Road Dogg discussed his experience of sharing a ring with Cody Rhodes and says he didn’t see the big star in Rhodes that he later became:
“So I did not, and I’m being perfectly honest with you at that time. Look, I was at a different place. I was what, twenty-something years into my wrestling career at that time and Cody was seven or something, you know what I mean? So I was at a different place in my career than he was at the time.”
“I would love to have had the Cody that I saw at Hell in a Cell or whatever. I would love to have worked a programme with that dude because he had experience, he had gone around the world and worked with different people and learned and man, he came back so polished.”
“But at that time, I thought, ‘Okay, he’s a good tag partner with Ted DiBiase or with you know, Aaron Stevens or, you know, Damien Mizdow. Or his brother, I thought they were a great tag team and I thought that would go somewhere. But I didn’t see a lot of potential in him that early.”
“Now when I became part of the creative process and we came up with Stardust, and that was something that Cody and I came up with, I thought it was great. I thought it was some of his best work and I thought it kind of showed how much range he had. So I know that got a lot of flack.”
Road Dogg recently returned to WWE in an executive position with the former DX member taking over from his former partner Jeff Jarrett as Vice President of Live Events.