Cody Rhodes is officially a two-time Royal Rumble winner. The grandson of a plumber is heading back to WrestleMania, and will likely look to finish his story by beating Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship after coming up short last year.
The “Finish Your Story” tagline has taken on a life of its own over the past year, from haunting Rhodes in his path back to the grand stage of WrestleMania to becoming the tagline for WWE 2K24. According to Rhodes, you can thank Michael Cole for the phrase becoming commonplace in WWE.
“I feel like I’ve got to give credit to Michael Cole because I came up with it and I said finish the story on my weight belt last year for the Royal Rumble. But Michael Cole’s saying it (around the 1:12 mark of the 2023 Royal Rumble match) is what really kind of emphasized it on what that is,” Rhodes told Uproxx Sports at the WWE 2K24 hands-on event.
“Everyone having their own story is the part that’s kind of come out lately. That’s so unique. CM Punk’s story, Drew (McIntyre)’s story, watching the commercial for the game itself and seeing Hulk Hogan talking about his story, The Undertaker, Steve Austin talking about their story. You never know if your stuff’s going to click. Maybe it will click for others. And I feel like I got something right. It’s for the industry as a whole. And I love that and I just hope that it actually can not just be a never ending story. We can finish the story, start a new story.”
When the story is complete, Rhodes will have accomplished almost everything from his bucket list. He’s a main eventer in WWE, someone who draws eyeballs whenever he steps into the ring and backs up that attention by having consistently great matches. And outside of the squared circle, Rhodes is one of the faces of the promotion with considerable merch sales, his face on a video game cover, and a documentary in the books.
That documentary, Peacock’s American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes, has so far been a one-off. But if Rhodes has his way, there’s going to be a sequel somewhere down the line.
“I’d like to see a Part 2 to the documentary. I have expressed that to Nick Khan. I know he’s got big documentaries and other stuff on the table that are happening, especially with the Netflix deal and all that. I’d like to see a Part 2 only because of how sour the finish of Part 1 is,” Rhodes says. “It’s real life. It is what it is. But I’d like people to know that if they believed, hopefully it was for a good reason.”
