Bully Ray Says WWE's Dusty Rhodes Documentary Shows That Cody Losing At WrestleMania Was The Right Call
At WrestleMania 39, Roman Reigns emerged still the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. This time, at the expense of Cody Rhodes, who up until WrestleMania Sunday, hadn't lost a single match since returning to the company last April. If you ask "Busted Open" co-host and WWE Hall of Famer Bully Ray, however, he believes WWE made the right call. That belief only grew stronger after watching the "WWE Legends" documentary centered around Cody's father Dusty Rhodes this past weekend on A&E.
"If after watching last night's documentary you don't believe that the WWE got it right, you truly don't understand what this business is all about," Bully Ray declared. "It's no coincidence that this documentary aired one week after WrestleMania."
Reigns retaining, in addition to the documentary on A&E, makes Bully Ray wants to see Rhodes win even more now. However, going forward it becomes a question of whether or not Rhodes will be that hot again when the time comes to fight for the championship once more and whether WWE did not capitalize on the momentum when it should have.
Bully Ray Believes Cody Will Still Get His Moment
Bully Ray then pointed to Cody's record since returning to WWE, how he defeated Seth Rollins three consecutive times, the third time coming with a completely torn pectoral muscle, and theorized what may have happened had he won at SoFi Stadium as well.
"Barring Cody getting injured, Roman getting injured ... If they stay the course, this is going to be huge for Cody," he continued. "If people would've gotten the way they wanted it, he would've come back at WrestleMania and won at WrestleMania also. In the world of the WWE, in that one-year span from Mania to Mania, what else would there have been for Cody Rhodes to do?"
At the end of the day, or rather this saga, Bully Ray still believes that Rhodes will get his moment as a top champion in WWE. But he also goes back to the documentary, and Cody's role in it, suggesting that he's more or less playing the part of his late father in this particular chapter. Specifically, when he was addressing the steel cage match between Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair in 1986.
"If you would've listened to Cody, going into the cage match with Flair, if you listen to the way Cody describes the story, the angle, and what was about to happen in the payoff, he basically is stooging off everything he's about to go through," Bully Ray added.
Echoing The Past?
Bully Ray suggests Cody will go through exactly the same thing Dusty did, but in the "WWE way." So, when will that moment be paid off? Well, not necessarily at WrestleMania, even though Bully Ray does consider it as one of the two possibilities while mentioning Paul Heyman's promo last Monday on "Raw," in which he mentioned neither WrestleMania nor one other particular venue while denying "The American Nightmare's" call for a rematch.
"I think that there's two possibilities now for a huge Cody Rhodes moment," he stated. "Madison Square Garden ... could you imagine if they ran a 'Monday Night Raw' from The Garden close to that same exact date, and Cody where to win it there?"
The date he is referring to is September 26, 1977, when Dusty Rhodes defeated then-WWWF Heavyweight Championship "Superstar" Billy Graham at Madison Square Garden. However, because Dusty won the match by count-out, he was not awarded the title. And it stands today as the title the Rhodes family has never won. "That'd be really emotional."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Busted Open" with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.