Cody: I Have a Wookie Life Debt to Rey Mysterio

Cody Rhodes recently appeared on E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness (transcript via wrestlinginc.com) and talked about owing a life debt to the legendary Rey Mysterio, learning about hard work in WWE, and more. Here are the highlights…

On His Wookie Life Debt to Rey Mysterio: “I have a Wookiee life debt to Rey Mysterio and he doesn’t even know it.” Cody continued, “Rey was kind of the one who ribbed me and brought me into the office that day with Vince [McMahon] and said, ‘I want to work Cody at WrestleMania – he [has] got some good ideas.’ And I did, thank God. And that’s where I think Vince kind of even played me. He said, like, ‘oh, do you have it on paper?’ and I actually had it on paper in my bag and I handed it to him. And after that, he kind of just grumbled and I got a ‘yes’ out of that grumble. I owe Rey everything I have, man. He [doesn’t] even know. He [doesn’t] even spell my name right, C-O-D-E-Y. That’s got to be a rib.”

On Learning About Hard Work in WWE: “One thing I consistently learned with WWE, I’m sure [Edge and Christian] both, I know [Edge and Christian] both figured this out over and over again, you think you’re working hard, and then you enter something new, you fill that block. And then, you’re like, ‘gosh, I’m covering this every second of every day.’ Like, in that company, you always find out that you could be working harder, I guess, if that makes any sense. There’s always this graduated level you’re working at.”

On Being Jealous of Ted DiBiase Jr: “With The Legacy particularly, I was the ugly duckling. I had a great spot, but I was the fall guy. Teddy was positioned to be the next Randy. Randy was the man.” Cody explained, “I knew I had to supersede Teddy in terms of they put me on SmackDown, they we’re expecting much, but they definitely didn’t set me up to fail. I started the ‘Dashing’ Cody Rhodes stuff and during that period, I learned that I had to work a-whole-nother degree harder to compete.”

On Wanting to Stop being Stardust in WWE: “I wanted to go back to being Cody Rhodes.” Cody professed, “Vince was being receptive to it. Hunter was being receptive to it. The problem was they were taking too long. And my dad had just [passed]. It may have been a minute, but he passed away. And there was some inner turmoil and when you have that inner turmoil, the last thing you want is turmoil at work, I think. And I just couldn’t handle it. It was sad. It was sad to put on that suit. It was like being a sad clown, literally. It was sad. And I knew they were receptive and thought maybe this was a good idea, but I needed it now. It just came to, ‘I’m going to leave, you don’t get to fire me, but you also don’t get to fix me. I’m going to go out and I’m going to fix myself. And who knows what I’m going to do after that?'”

On His Decision to leave WWE: “Leaving [WWE] was really difficult, but it was also the easiest decision I had ever made. It was difficult because I had a family. 19 years old, I go to OVW, and I have my friends, and I have little Zack Ryder, he’s still there, and I have Dustin [Runnels].” Cody said, “I’ve got family there and I’ve got Arn [Anderson], who… Arn is a huge part… all these people, whatever. And that was hard to not tell them because this was a decision I had to make.”