Cody Rhodes is just days away from the biggest match of his career at WrestleMania 39. ‘The American Nightmare’ will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in Los Angeles in one the the most highly anticipated clashes in recent memory. In a recent interview, however, Rhodes has been recalling one less than impressive bout he was involved in during his previous WWE tenure.
An over-confident Cody Rhodes snorted before infamous WWE bout.
When speaking recently on HOT 106 with Mike D, the Grandson of a plumber explained that he was so confident that a six-man tag team match taped for the 17th June 2011 episode of SmackDown involving Rhodes, Ted Dibiase Jr, and Wade Barrett up against Sin Cara, Ezekiel Jackson and Daniel Bryan would go well that he comically snorted during pre-match discussions:
“There is a legendary wrestler, now he’s a producer and writer, Michael Hayes. He was in charge of whatever I was doing that night, I believe it was a three-segment tag match. I don’t know if it was being young, arrogant, or braggart. He asked me what we were going to do out there and I legitimately snorted pre-workout to be funny. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a very strong pre-workout. I did it and I told him, ‘it doesn’t matter what we do out there, we’re going to tear the roof off this place.’ Famous last words. Then disaster struck!”
Rhodes would go on to highlight how the match went from bad to worse and that the teams, plus referee Rod Zapata, almost felt the wrath of Vince McMahon backstage immediately afterward:
“In the first segment of the three segments. One guy got kicked below the waist twice. That was Bad News Barrett. Tried real hard to get back to where we were, got kicked below again. The next thing you know, Daniel Bryan hits a dropkick in the corner and Ted DiBiase Jr gets pinned. Doesn’t get up. That’s in one segment. Two segments (not filled) on television that we’re supposed to do something, there was a lot of frustration. I rolled to the outside realizing this was probably the worst match in history of the arena (in Rhodes Island).
I walk to the back, there’s Vince (McMahon) standing up, headset off, you know you’re in trouble. Ted thought he kicked out, he looked at him and before Vince could yell at us, he said, ‘Where is that referee? He was trying to [f*ck] on us.’ The way he worded it, everyone was staring at him. There is no justice in this, the referee, Rod Zapata, he’s still with WWE, great referee. Vince called him over, ‘Hey ref, you were totally out of position.’ He’s validating Ted. He said, ‘I know sir, but on covers that face the hard camera, I can’t block the hard cam.’ Vince put the headset back on, ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ and sat back down”.
‘The American Nightmare’ noted that the match aired un-edited to his surprise, but shared his delight that a bout at the same arena during his current WWE run would at least give the fans something to enjoy:
“I told Michael we were going to tear the roof off, Michael is shaking his head. The worst part of it all, in the worst match I ever had in the history of my time at WWE, the worst part of it all, we thought they would edit it a little bit. I watched it all happen back. It’s like somebody in the office said, ‘Just let these young guys know they suck. They’re not tearing the roof off.’ I made up for it when I came back for Backlash, last time I was here, I had a great match with Seth Rollins.”
H/T: Fightful for the transcription