Cody Rhodes instantly became WWE’s biggest star upon his return at WrestleMania 38. He has since been WWE’s main star, besides Roman Reigns. His winning the WWE undisputed championship at WrestleMania 40 was supposed to be the beginning of a new era. However, WWE’s creative team had to scramble, and Rhodes’ momentum has drastically increased; it remains to be seen whether he can regain it.
While Rhodes’ momentum shift might appear inevitable in hindsight, it wasn’t meant to be. Many would say that the crowd turning on Rhodes is inevitable due to him being the whitest meat of babyfaces, and that the audience easily gets tired of such characters.
Stars like Rey Mysterio, Jey Uso and Sting might prove that wrong to an extent.
There was also the belief that there’s no fun in the face being the champion, since it’s all about the chase. While the chase is the most fun part, there’s delight to be found in watching a babyface overcoming the odds to keep his belt to stay champion, especially when said champion is a performer as capable as Cody Rhodes. While we are most used to seeing heels having long reigns, Bruno Sammartino’s eight-year tenure as WWWF world champion is an extreme example that the opposite can work under the right circumstances.
There are many theories about wrestling, which we believe to be true despite little evidence to support them.
One of which is the notion that modern, cynical audiences will not accept a white meat babyface like Cody Rhodes. Fans thought fans could only get behind Stone Cold-like badasses and that overly joyful, always smiling faces were a thing of the past.
Rhodes has shown it to be false for three years.
He succeeded where many before him failed, the most obvious examples being John Cena and Roman Reigns. The list of WWE superstars who fed this belief could also be extended to other experiments, such as Sheamus and Ronda Rousey.
Rhodes had an emotional, organic connection with the fans and felt genuine in his willingness to be WWE’s flag bearer. He was also different from previous experiments in that his actions matched his demeanour.
He wasn’t one to talk down to his opponents, bore the crowds with corny jokes, or feud with other faces.
WWE was finally giving the fans what they wanted instead of proving they could piss them off as much as they wanted without repercussion. It would take a massive fumble to ruin this momentum, and fumble they did. Cue WrestleMania 41.
Making Rhodes face Cena at WrestleMania was concerning in itself. Rhodes is one of the best performers in WWE and had delivered in big matches until now. But there was no way he could get a great, main event worthy match against John Cena in 2025.
While there was no way on earth the match would be good, one could expect something out of the buildup to this match. After all, Cena is pretty good on the stick and Rhodes is outstanding at it.
Not only did they fail to make the match somewhat interesting, but the promos ended up hurting Rhodes, to the point he was getting booed on the go-home by some in the audience and during their terrible match at WrestleMania.
Now, there was no need to catastrophise. The boos were not unanimous; they were scattered.
WWE’s reaction to this was the most intriguing part. Immediately afterwards, it was reported that WWE had been preparing the crowd to turn on Rhodes since his return in 2022.
One example was Kevin Owens turning heel against Rhodes after Saturday Night’s Main Event. The turn happened in a car park after the show, so it would be shared across social media, and to avoid the crowd cheering.
This suggests that they did not fully understand what made him so compelling to the fans. After all, cheering for Owens would not necessarily mean the crowd rejected Rhodes.
The feud itself was very telling of this. It tried hard to show the similarities between Rhodes and Cena, thus removing the qualities that made Rhodes beloved. Rhodes did point out the differences between the two, saying he’s never been told he couldn’t wrestle by the fans, but it was after weeks of bland exchanges.
The build to their terrible main event of WrestleMania 41 would be worthy of its own article. What matters here is that WWE fumbled their biggest babyface due to their poor creative and had the temerity to consider it was inevitable, or that it was because the fans couldn’t possibly boo John Cena in 2025 even though they did most of the time.
The question now is, how can Rhodes recover from this? The good sign is that, as of this writing, he is set to face Drew McIntyre at WrestlePalooza. The other is that feuds with Randy Orton and CM Punk are looming in the near future.
If he can go back to displaying what makes him great, delivering in the ring and on the stick against capable performers like these, the mere thought of Rhodes getting booed will feel like a collective fever dream.
Rhodes and Orton have enough shared history and mesh well in the ring to make it great. What’s more, Orton is not one to shy away from doing dastardly heel things, such as giving an RKO to Mama Rhodes.
What’s concerning is WWE’s uninspired creative lately and a misinterpretation of one-off crowd reactions, which could lead to tone-deaf promos. Like, the after-match promo at Night of Champions 2025, where, after beating Orton, Rhodes cut a promo saying, “Look at me, I’m turning heel”?
Don’t overthink and try to course-correct, and Rhodes will be fine for a couple of years.
