Cody Rhodes Reflects On Wrestlers Doing ‘High-Level’ Working, Has Questions About Montreal Screwjob

Cody Rhodes has shared his thoughts on wrestlers “working within the work” and how he questions all supposed shoots, including the Montreal Screwjob. Rhodes weighed on the notion in the context of WWE: Unreal and whether it destroys kayfabe, noting that high-level “super geniuses” in the business can work within the work and still make fans believe.

Rhodes proceeded to use the Montreal Screwjob as an example after Simmons brought up Hart’s Wrestling With Shadows documentary. He noted that no one has ever told him otherwise but there are enough weird aspects of it that he has questions, and that it’s partially a result of how his father would treat his questions about whether things were real or not. You can see highlights below:

On being able to do high-level working: “I think one of the things that presents itself for wrestlers that hardcore fans may not be thinking but the really smart, smart, smart ‘super geniuses,’ as I call them. Your Michael Hayes’ and your Mr. Heymans, there’s work that can happen within the work. If you say, ‘Hey, this is all real. This is — look at this.’ Then it starts to become hard to figure out, ‘Wait, how — wait, no, that part’s real.’ And that’s where you can do work within the work.

“So, you can still — again, the word that no one can ever tell me what it means. You can still do kayfabe. You really can. It’s just different. And that’s the fun experiment we get to take as we lift this veil, but we cover this thing up. I don’t know. You know, I just — I think it presents options that wrestlers and maybe the hardcore fans who are a little worried about, oh no, they’re going to expose it all. Yeah, maybe we expose this part, but maybe there’s a whole another part you didn’t see.”

On the Montreal Screwjob: “Do you think that was a documentary or do you think that was part of it? I have had a — whenever I tell somebody high-level confidential stuff, I use — Chris, who’s in the corner has probably heard me say this — I say Bret/Shawn level. I’ve never heard from either that it wasn’t as real as it possibly could get. And maybe it was. It certainly ended up being real, no doubt.

“However, I have questions. There was a documentary crew backstage at a company that never ever allows anything like that? There’s mics in the room. Hmm. This, to me, is always the work within the work.”

On another example of that: “Shawn Michaels was my favorite wrestler growing up and I’m probably sitting here making him mad. He’s still my favorite wrestler. But then you get to him and Hogan when they wrestled at SummerSlam and they’re like, ‘Oh, you can tell he’s mad at Hogan.’ But is he? Or does this just seemed like the one real thing on the show where you knew everything else was fictional?”

On Dusty’s influence on his opinions about works: “So growing up around my dad, I always — when something would happen on TV that felt like a shoot, as we say. I’d be sitting literally front of the TV, as they say criss-cross applesauce or whatever. I’m watching the TV. I have my Hasbro figures even though I was way too old to have figures at that point. I’m watching and he’d be behind me, and I’d always look back like, ‘Oh, some –‘ And he just always smile ear to ear. And I felt like in that smile I could tell he knew they were doing some high-level work, and the whole world was doing exactly what they needed to do. And I was like his litmus test.”

“I don’t know. These could all be to conspiracy theories, they could all be true. They could all be total shoots. They really could. But the way I look at is, anything and everything that happens in the ring, I always look at it with a, ‘Well, that feels like it was part of it.'”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit The Bill Simmons Podcast with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.