Rollins deep dives into his 2022 program with Cody Rhodes.
This year’s WrestleMania featured Cody Rhodes’ return to WWE. On his return night, he picked up a win over Seth Rollins.
The lead-up to the match saw Rollins attempting to find his way onto the WrestleMania card until it was ultimately decided that he would have a mystery opponent. Rollins told Ryan Satin on the Out of Character podcast that the match with Rhodes was finalized three weeks before.
Up until that point, Rollins was in the dark and was not sure if he would be part of WrestleMania. He mentioned that he had some “strong conversations” with former Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon about it. It got to the point where Rollins sent Rhodes a text message and straight up asked if he’s coming or not.
I knew like — for sure, I would say less than a month out from WrestleMania [is when I found out concrete plans about the match with Cody Rhodes]. I was really left out of WrestleMania until — he ended up being a Godsend, but we’re talking — it was finalized I wanna say three weeks before WrestleMania. Even as we were starting to build the story towards that, it was not quite sure. There was conversations being had and all this stuff that I wasn’t really privy to and I was kind of trying to poke around and be like, ‘Hey, is this gonna happen or do I need to start thinking about something else? Because I’m really not interested in getting left off WrestleMania, two nights and I don’t wanna be thrown into a match that means nothing.’ Both the titles were being held up in the one match so I’m like… I gotta have something here… I had been doing so much good work. I was like, I’m doing great work. If I was sucking, then yeah, I get it but I’m not. I’m 35 at that time, in my prime. I’m like, I don’t know what else you want from me, you know what I’m saying? I was very, ‘This is awful.’ Had some real strong conversations — I’ll put it that way — with Vince [McMahon] leading up to that but once we got rolling, everything was set in stone, like I said, I think it was three weeks, four weeks, somewhere in that time frame where I finally was like, texted Cody… I didn’t want to text him because I was having the conversations with Bruce [Prichard] and Vince so I was like they’re handling negotiations. I don’t wanna say something. I don’t know what they’ve told him or I don’t know what the heck is going on so I was just waiting to see, okay, am I gonna get some sort of confirmation and finally, we were getting too close and I was like, yeah, I need to know. I gotta text him so I was like, ‘We doing this thing or what?’ And he’s like, ‘Think so. Pretty sure.’ I’m like, ‘All right, well that’s good enough for me. If you’re committed then I guess we’re going so…’
Circling back around to the topic of the build, Rollins did enjoy it. He said he and Cody’s story was different because it was a culmination of what Rollins had been doing on TV and the match was the payoff.
Rollins touched on the suggestion from viewers about Cody possibly being brought onto an episode of Raw before WrestleMania. He said he watches wrestling the same way so he understands those takes, but thinks it is better to just enjoy the ride.
I thought it was fun [build to the match with Cody Rhodes]. One of the things about our story was — or my story I should say was that it was a culmination to the match at WrestleMania whereas most of the other stories, the matches were made and they had to work to get the story, you know? So that was one of the interesting parts is we got to kind of tell the story and the payoff was the match which is fun so, it was fun. I got to do weird stuff like jump on Vince’s desk and go nuts and I got to have good matches Kevin [Owens] and I think AJ [Styles] as well and help other stories kind of move along so, I enjoyed the process and the payoff was worth it so, you know, I’m glad we waited. I remember a lot of online build-up being like, ‘Why don’t they just bring him in and then build it?’ I’m like, ah, just get on the ride man. Don’t watch the ride and be like, it shouldn’t go this way, that way. Just pay the money, get on the ride, get off and go, oh, that ride rocked… I get it, I get it, I understand. I watch wrestling the same way sometimes. Sometimes I find myself going, ‘Oh, why didn’t they do that? They should have done this.’ But at the end of the day, if it’s good, it’s good and I go, ‘Okay, cool, it’s good,’ you know? I like to watch and at least try to separate myself from watching it so analytically but, I understand it but just as a piece of advice, you get a lot more happiness if you just pay the ticket and get on the ride.
The second match between Rhodes and Rollins took place at WrestleMania Backlash and Rollins fell in defeat in that match as well. Seth said that was he and Cody’s show and they sold that one. (Note: Disregard Rollins’ note about Lynch and Belair. He mistook their WrestleMania 38 match for WrestleMania Backlash)
Say what you will about [WrestleMania] Backlash, me and Cody [Rhodes] main evented that. We sold that one and I think Becky [Lynch] and Bianca [Belair] as well a little bit but me and Cody mostly. They added that six-man late which was a great six-man [Bloodline vs. McIntyre & RK-Bro] but, that was Cody and I’s show to begin with.
In the third match between Cody and Seth, they competed inside Hell in a Cell and Rhodes went into that match with a torn pectoral muscle. To hear POST Wrestling’s recap of their bout, check out our review of the show.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit ‘Out of Character with Ryan Satin’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
