Cody Rhodes Had Private Moment With Dustin at WrestleMania 40

Dustin Rhodes is currently signed with AEW, and has generally dismissed any chance of a WWE return, unless it’s a Hall of Fame induction post-retirement. But he was able to have a moment with his brother Cody shortly before the latter’s WrestleMania 40 main event.

Speaking with Ariel Helwani, Cody recalled it as his biggest moment of that day, saying, “I tear up every time I think about it. No one knew it happened, but my my brother Dustin, I don’t want to say we have a complicated relationship, but families are complicated, certainly love each other, but you know, we we wrestle at different places and and I don’t always agree with what he does. I’m sure he never agrees with what I do. This brother stuff, but he just came on my bus and um he just asked me, ‘Are you ready?'”

“Dustin’s career, and how everywhere it went, all that, that was a moment that just felt so good. To be able to tell my big brother who’d been through this business and been through it hard, lived it hard, fought hard, all that to be able to just tell him yes and really mean it. Yes, I’m ready. I’m ready for for everyone here. So that’s a good moment. I don’t know if he remembers it, but out of everybody who came on my bus and the revolving door that day of luminaries and legends and the beautiful things and all the people who were involved with the match, you know, it’s often called the greatest five minutes in the history of wrestling. That moment with Dustin made my day.”

There was one additional significance to it, as he explained: “It wasn’t his to ask, it was my dad’s to ask and dad couldn’t be there. So for him to — we have a unique relationship in that I often try to think I’m the older brother, but that’s arrogant on my behalf. I’m the little brother still. And it was his to ask that night, ‘Are you ready?’ And it just reminded me so much of the old man. And I know people say like, ‘Oh, he’s there. He’s with you.'”

“And when they’re not physically there, it’s easy to say that and I understand. I get what people mean, but Dustin was and my mom was. And I actually said that at the press conference after, like the Mama Rhodes thing I thought was so silly and ridiculous [but] when I look back at it, I thought there was no one more who had the right to engage with all of that than she did. That she she lived it with Dusty and she also is a pro wrestler in her own way. So that was just that just a little moment between brothers, you know.”