Cody Rhodes Reacts to TNA Clip of Him As A Heel, Fan Interest In Him Turning

As much as fans in arenas chant “Cody…Cody RHODES! Cody…Cody Rho-odes!” many longtime followers of the American Nightmare’s career crave the days when he played more nuanced and less clean-cut characters, be it Dashing Cody Rhodes with the paper bags, or “Phantom” Cody Rhodes with the mask. In AEW, by the end he was going in a more tweener direction, with shirts that featured checkboxes indicating he was neither “heel” nor “babyface,” but “winner.”

One fan on X recently resurfaced a clip of Cody during his TNA days, paying off one of Brandi’s opponents and generally behaving like an amusing jerk, saying “Cody Rhodes [sic] heel run in WWE is going to be one for the ages.”

Cody actually responded, in true babyface fashion, by acknowledging that he hears the argument but is doing better now; as much as fans may love his old characters, they did not make the kind of money he does today as WWE’s top hero: “3 biggest gates of all time didn’t happen with the jerk in this vid…It was a fun step on the journey though!”

Check out the exchange below:

😂 people cite this clip and the me spitting one and assume it was far better than it was

3 biggest gates of all time didn’t happen with the jerk in this vid

It was a fun step on the journey though!

— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) October 19, 2025

Very few wrestlers stay either face or heel forever nowadays — the Ricky Steamboats and Tito Santanas are from a bygone era, so Cody will likely turn heel eventually, but probably not while he’s still raking the company in more cash as the ultimate babyface.