During an appearance on "All The Smoke," Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, known as "The American Nightmare," expressed his excitement for the SummerSlam event held at Metlife Stadium this past August.
This is what Cody Rhodes said, “I was very excited about SummerSlam. Because it’s Metlife [Stadium] So you’re [dealing with audiences from] New York, New Jersey, and that’s not an easy market. They’ve seen it all. They’re a special market, and you have to be special for them to care. It’s the same vibe when you’re going into [Madison Square] Garden, almost. It’s just — if you can make it in New York, you really can make it anywhere.”
On working with John Cena during Cena’s farewell tour:
“To wrestle a person who gave me his playbook. Who was the model for how I like to be as a babyface professional wrestler, how I like to do it, how I like to — we were talking off camera, how I would work seven days a week. And the rhythm of wrestling, and going to every town. To be able to stand across from a guy who was your mentor, somebody who talked to you about, ‘Hey, this is why this worked, this is why this didn’t work. You should work on this, you should improve this.’ It’s rare you get the time to actually play the game against them. You might have all those lessons, but you’re playing against somebody else. It’s really rare you can stand across from that guy, look him in the eye — and not just be grateful and thankful. But also hope he sees you and go, ‘Ah, there he is.’ And hope and make him see you. The opportunity to do two matches with John. One at WrestleMania, and then one at SummerSlam, where we could really treat them almost as one match in itself. [I’m] very blessed that I got to be in there with him, but in the moment it couldn’t be one of those ‘I’m blessed.’ It couldn’t be one of those. I needed to bring everything I possibly could.”
On Cena’s farewell tour:
“And he has given — we’re at the tail end of John’s farewell tour. He has given everything as far as you could possibly give, body-wise and mind-wise, to the industry. Especially with the young talent who ask questions. If you’re a young talent, and you ask John Cena a question? Get ready. Because he’s [an open book].”
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(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
