Cody Rhodes Acknowledges He Was Jealous of ‘Dusty’s Kids’ In NXT and WWE

Dusty Rhodes was a mentor to several names in WWE as they went through NXT, and Cody has admitted that he was jealous of the group known as “Dusty’s Kids.” Cody appeared on the SI Media Podcast and during the conversation, he talked about how he had some resentment over the group of stars like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins who rose to the top of WWE after Dusty mentored them. You can see some highlights from the conversation below, courtesy of Wrestling Inc:

On being jealous of ‘Dusty’s kids’ in WWE: “I think the jealously was more intense than I even want to admit. It started even before he [Dusty] passed when NXT was down the street from my house, where they first started doing their TakeOver shows. I wanted the sort of experience they were getting, I wanted to be in Dusty’s promo classes and wanted to know what he was sharing with them. We had never had that [sort of] interaction. When he was a writer for WWE, and I was being brought up on the road, he asked to be taken off the road and he went to Florida and started that [NXT] job. So, we never were truly a coach and a player. It was intense jealousy, it only furthered when I had slipped myself down the card. The ones who were particularly hard to watch were Charlotte, Roman, Seth, Mox [Jon Moxley], Kevin [Owens], Sami [Zayn], Sasha Banks, Bailey — those were very tough to watch.”

On lashing out over it: “I definitely lashed out. I lashed out at Hunter, too, because he was the one constantly referring to them as Dusty’s Kids. My sister Teal and I hated that. But we also couldn’t say that aloud because they [Dusty’s Kids] were doing so great, representing him better than even I was.”

On never having a mentor-pupil relationship with his dad: “He was such an active father for me, and the absolute perfect dad. I think that’s what his bandwidth was for — it wasn’t to teach me how to do a hip toss, a body slam, or what to do if the crowd goes off the rails in the middle of an interview. It wasn’t that. It was to teach me to be a functioning adult. It’s why I said in his 2007 Hall of Fame induction that he wasn’t afraid of me failing [as a wrestler].”