Cody Rhodes looks back on breaking the PG Era.
The Rock's return to WWE brought back memories of the Attitude Era as Rock made Cody Rhodes bleed, talked about fans smoking crack, and dropped multiple curse words during his promos.
Cody got in on the non-PG Era, mentioned LDS (Little Dick Syndrome) in a promo calling out The Rock.
Speaking to Jimmy Traina on the SI Media Podcast, Cody reflected on his promos and some guilt he felt.
"It’s a situation where, I have respect for The Rock. It gets to the point, though, where you can’t have so much respect that you put your hands down. I had been really diplomatic, it wasn’t so much so that it wasn’t working with the fans, as much as, I don’t think it was resonating with [Rock]. Specifically, the one interview I did, I was wearing a black suit and that’s where the LDS comment was. I called him a carny. I just wanted to speak his language. He came from that era of cutthroat crash TV. He’s been in every era, but I wanted to speak his language and let him know someone, if not a few people, on this current roster can speak your language if you’d like. I, in a weird way....fans in the arena loved it. There was a huge joy to this interview, however, for me, I felt a little guilty because I have a lot of young young fans and I would never want them to ask their mom about LDS. I remember telling myself, ‘There are like 20,000 YouTube videos of me on BTE cursing and yelling,’ but my run with WWE has been for the family audience and the little Nightmares, the little kiddos. I just wouldn’t want to lead them astray in any way. Hopefully, that interview didn’t turn them off to me as their guy. Everyone after was so pumped about it, my wife was digging it, I remember that I felt a little guilty.
"When you’re talking to someone of such power and aura, you have to commit and bring it. Anytime I said something in the build to WrestleMania, that I felt I didn’t believe, you could tell right away. You could look on my face and go, ‘Ah, he didn’t.’ I had to remind myself of these individuals, particularly the Bloodline and Mr. Heyman; they will not accept if I’m half-cocked. That’s not going to work. I was able to get all the way there."
Elsewhere during the interview, Cody discussed the moment where he felt The Rock saw him as a "player" in WWE. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
Cody is set to defend his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against AJ Styles at WWE Backlash. You can check out the current lineup for the show by clicking here.
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