Cody Rhodes On If He Still Plans on Retiring At 40, Why He Chose That Age Originally

Cody Rhodes isn’t certain if he’ll retire at 40 like he originally said. Rhodes addressed his future during the post-WrestleMania media scrum and previous comments about whether he wants to retire when he’s 40 (which would be in 2025).

“40, it was for me, I don’t know if we ever explained why 40,” he said (per Fightful). “40 was because, I didn’t want to be an old man wrestler. Some guys like being old men and women wrestlers, they love it. Some of them are doing it at the highest level, you don’t know they are old. This is something people forget about me; I started in the WWE system at 19, 20, and I was on the road full time, never one weekend off, except when I tore my trap and that was three weeks, that’s where the mustache came from. That was the only time I ever had off in the ten years I was with WWE, that’s all live events. No knock on Independent wrestling, that’s maybe two shows a month, one big loop, for me it was Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, often. The kicker was, I was a bad guy. It’s a lot of falling down and a lot on your body.”

He continued, “I didn’t want to have to saddle walk or not be able to pick up my kid. There’s the best medical team here (and) where I just was. Tom Brady is like 80 and he’s still the GOAT. Maybe 40 isn’t the number anymore, but that’s probably still out there for me because it’d be fun. I loved watching my dad wrestle when he was older, but it’s hard. It’s like a 36-year-old going on 50, that’s what it feels like with the schedule I had. So, I don’t know, I think I’m going to get away from absolutes. I was the king of absolutes for the last six years and a lot of them coming back to bite me in the ass, which is fine. We change our minds. Maybe, maybe 40.”