Cody Rhodes has, of course, been terribly busy since being granted his release from WWE. He’s crossed basically every item off his to-do list on the indies and is currently working in Ring of Honor, EVOLVE, and TNA. And he’s had a busy Thanksgiving weekend, as he captured the Global Force Wrestling Nex*Gen Championship from Sonjay Dutt.
Your new NEX*GEN Champion @CodyRhodes!! pic.twitter.com/3ixrIPJlQ3
— My World with Jeff Jarrett (@MyWorldPod) November 26, 2016
On the most recent episode of Colt Cabana’s The Art of Wrestling podcast, Rhodes talked about everything that’s been going on in his career as of late (in between extolling the virtues of Tye Dillinger, which all of us here can definitely get behind). The most eyebrow-raising comment he made, however, is that he has plans in mind for when he’s going to finish up being a wrestler, and it’s really not that far off.
“I used to always say, ‘I’m done at 40. Like, that will be it. I will never wrestle again after 40.’ Yeah, I’m feeling I still will stick to that. Yeah, I don’t know why. That’s just the number I have in my mind. Yeah, the number is a real thing. The reason I have the number is I grew up around old wrestlers and it was really cool to see the people respected and loved them for the nostalgia it brought; however, it was also not cool to see them old and having to hurt themselves and I don’t want that life. They get older, but only in this wacky world is it that they’re still booked and I get why. I get it. The nostalgia, but if I was running an independent show or running a brand of my own, I definitely, if I had any of the legends in, there wouldn’t be any physicality.”
We’ve all been wrestling fans long enough to know that you should always take a wrestler’s retirement plans with at least one grain of salt, which Rhodes himself readily admitted, and he has a lot of first-hand experience with that reality. I mean, Terry Funk had his most recent retirement match last year, literally 16 years after Beyond the Mat was released.
Rhodes is currently 31 years old, so we’ll have about nine years left to enjoy him as a wrestler, if things go according to plan. It seems likely that we’ll see him in WWE again before all is said and done, but maybe he’ll just spend the majority of the next decade tearing it up on the international indie circuit. I’m sure no one here would object to that too much.
(h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription)
