Cody Rhodes shared some stories with reference to his father, Dusty, and the arc of his career working with Vince McMahon.
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Recently, Cody Rhodes discussed the claim that the McMahon family has never been particularly smitten with the Rhodes clan. Fans have long held the opinion that Vince McMahon sent the illustrious “American Dream” Dusty Rhodes out on the stage wearing polka-dot trunks as a joke. The 2023 men’s Royal Rumble champion discussed whether he thinks McMahon was making fun of his father during a visit on the “Cheap Heat” podcast.
“I don’t believe he took it out on him,” Rhodes said. “If you hear it from Vince himself, he just thought he was past his prime, let’s do some fun stuff. When I try to tell fans that the polka dots wasn’t a rib, it’s one of those things where they will argue with me on it. I don’t wanna argue about this stuff. Hey, however you feel.”
Rhodes mentioned that Ted DiBiase “The Million Dollar Man”, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, and Big Boss Man, among others, were among Dusty’s well-known WWE rivals. He said that as a performer for WWE, Dusty earned the highest money of his career. Regarding the notion that the McMahon family despises the Rhodes family, he expressed that he believed the truth might be somewhere in the center. “I like the narrative about the McMahons maybe pushing Rhodes a bit,” Rhodes said. “It’s a fun narrative. There also might be some truth in it. There might be.”
One of the things that I was told as a kid was that right after these Garden Shows with ‘Superstar’ Billy Graham, is that Vince McMahon wanted to use Dusty and ‘Superstar’ for his expansion, the expansion that would become what we know and where we work and the biggest global sports entertainment wrestling entity on the planet, by far. They booked recording studio time, they were going to make albums, this was before Rock N Wrestling where Vince had these ideas of reaching out beyond pro wrestling. As a kid, hearing that story from Dusty, I didn’t believe it. I’m watching VHS videos of Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior and I thought it was his way of catching up, ‘I was really special too,’ he didn’t need to do that, but everyone has an ego.” said Cody.
“Come to find out, one day I’m sitting by the ring, this is before I left, I’m still doing Stardust, Vince told me the exact story. How mad he was that Dad left and he was going to give him the whole world and he wanted him to be the Hogan and all this. I remember my dad telling me how Hogan used to come to Champion Wrestling from Florida and watched him and revered him. It just sounded like, ‘you’re just trying to chase that clout.’ Then I heard it from Vince and then I heard it from Hogan and Bruce Prichard. I hope we cover this on the documentary. I consider Dusty Rhodes a Mount Rushmore guy, and not just because he’s my dad. If it’s a son Mount Rushmore, I’m putting four Dustys.” He continued.
“I consider him from an industry perspective, closed circuit becoming pay-per-view, The Big Event, the idea of sizzle and matching substance, especially what him and ‘Superstar’ did in the Garden, that’s why the Garden is so dang special to me. It was great to get this part of the story out there and hear it from Bruce as well.” Cody further exclaimed.
