Cody Rhodes has had quite the journey over the past few years, and WWE pulls the curtain back on that journey in American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes documentary. The documentary stretches from Rhodes’ early life all the way to his sensational return to WWE at WrestleMania 38 and beyond. ComicBook.com had the chance to speak to Rhodes all about the documentary, including what was most important to include, how his daughter changed his life in wrestling, and more. The documentary includes references to Cody’s full journey, including All In and his eventual signing with AEW, and that full picture was the most important element of the documentary for Rhodes.
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“When I talked to Ben Hauser and Matt Braine, who really are the architects of this documentary, I was just adamant that you don’t exclude my time away,” Rhodes said. “That you don’t just say, ‘Cody was gone on a boat ride for six or seven years. Now he’s back.’ I said, ‘I know it’s difficult and it’s somewhat taboo. We’re a different team here.’ And I said though, The story, it all has to be in there.”
“And again, you could take sections of a documentary and extrapolate on them further and get deep, deep, deep, deep into them, but I just wanted to make sure that things were covered honestly and fairly. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, all those things, and it’s in there. So my time away needed to be included,” Rhodes said.
The topic of family is a major part of the documentary, especially in regard to Brandi Rhodes and their daughter Liberty. At one point Rhodes says he hopes to make her proud to say that her dad is Cody Rhodes, something any dad can relate to, and during our discussion I asked how she had affected his approach to wrestling and his career overall.
“Well, I’d say the thing that changed most for me career-wise was I no longer had any capacity for any BS. It’s not … I have no capacity for circling, backstabbing, politicking, any of that. If anything, I’ll just tell you to your face in the polite way this is how I feel, this is what I should be doing, this is what they should be doing,” Rhodes said. “Whatever it might be. I thought that was the best to free me up to just be fully transparent. And in an industry for a long, long time where I had been just like everybody else in a sense that there’s weird things you have to navigate in show business.”
“And when she was born, it just … My capacity for BS was that was it. I couldn’t deal with it, and that was very helpful, helpful for me because also, not only are you saying, ‘Hey, this is what I need for me. This is what I want to be doing’. You also are getting answers back about the level you’re at and where you should be, and it’s just more honest. If anything, Liberty being born and being a part of my life and having to report back to her, it freed me up to just be a hundred percent honest and not coy, not sly with anything. Here’s the deal, let’s go,” Rhodes said.
American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes is streaming now and WWE SummerSlam streams on August 5th, only on Peacock. You can sign up for Peacock right here.
What did you think of American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes? Let us know in the comments and as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb!
