00:00Cody Rhodes talks heel turn and rock heat, WWE's huge success for Monday Night Raw,
00:06Will Ospreay is an AEW locker room leader and more.
00:09I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:13Do you remember a few years ago when Cody Rhodes came out for that one AEW pay-per-view
00:22and we all joked how he looked and well, just flat out dressed like Homelander from The
00:27Boys?
00:28Remember that feud with Anthony Gogo?
00:29Do you remember?
00:30We all collectively went, I get it now, he's a heel, he's Homelander, you know, the baddie
00:37from The Boys.
00:38But then over time that started to dissipate and we all realised, oh, I think Cody just
00:43really likes America.
00:45And now we've come to accept that he just dresses like Homelander and we cheer him anyway
00:49because he's a bloody great bloke.
00:51But now we're through the looking glass, people.
00:54In a new advert spot for the latest season of The Boys on Amazon Prime, we see what appears
00:58to be Homelander with his back turned to the camera, interspersed with clips from the show.
01:02But as the camera pans up, we remember that Homelander doesn't have a big neck tattoo
01:07and the man turns round to reveal he's Cody Rhodes, asking Homelander what he wants to
01:11talk about.
01:12The snake has eaten its own tail, Cody vs. Homelander at SummerSlam confirmed.
01:17And I bring up that Homelander story because a, it's a bit of fun, and b, it ties nicely
01:21into our next story.
01:23Cody Rhodes returned to WWE in 2022 in one of the most shocking things in wrestling history
01:28dot, dot, dot up until that point.
01:32A lot of mad things have happened since then.
01:41He came in as the uber blue eyed babyface and has remained that uber blue eyed babyface
01:46of WWE.
01:47He fought against the bloodline and finally toppled Roman Reigns after a near epic four
01:52year run with that world title in one of the best Mania main events of all time.
01:56He is, without question, WWE's number one babyface, their truest white meat babyface
02:02that fans actually like since, well, forever.
02:06So of course some pockets of the internet think he should turn heel.
02:10I don't get it either.
02:12This isn't like Roman Reigns or John Cena where the WWE fans were outright rejecting
02:17a top babyface and a heel turn would have, you know, benefitted them in the long term.
02:21You know, like what's actually happening with Roman right now.
02:24WWE fans love Cody Rhodes, he is selling a bunch of merchandise and is showing no signs
02:30of growing stale.
02:31But Cody Rhodes has now addressed this topic in an interview with the Pivot Podcast.
02:35It's a brilliant part of the interview where he talks about what it means to be a heel
02:38in 2024.
02:39You can't just run down the crowd or beat up a babyface to get booed anymore.
02:44He cites JBL as a great example of a heel you wanted to hate 20 years ago, and all he
02:48had to do was things like make sure none of his merchandise was for sale at shows even
02:52in his hometown.
02:53So he argues the only way to turn heel in 2024 is to really push yourself into positions
02:59to get booed.
03:00Effectively, without putting too fine a point on it, you need to work cancel yourself.
03:06He highlights what The Rock did to get booed during their Mania build, and said that if
03:10fans really wanted him to turn heel, then he would need to do, and say, some drastic
03:16stuff.
03:17But before we find out how drastic, here's a clip from our most recent WrestleTalk original
03:20where Oli tracks the cursed history of Money in the Bank.
04:06Cody said of the fans asking for him to turn heel, I don't really know if they know what
04:25they're asking for though.
04:26If you're really wishing for that, it's scorched earth.
04:30And then you might be like, ah, I don't like that, nope, that's rude to that group of people.
04:35No, that's the job.
04:37Someone's going to come out and beat me up in a minute, but before they do, I'm going
04:40to talk my trash.
04:42You have to really go scorched earth in this day, and in 2024, it's hard.
04:48Why do you think people want Cody to turn heel?
04:50Do you think it's because the blue-eyed babyface schtick just isn't working anymore?
04:54Let me know in the comments down below.
04:55Speaking on that podcast, Rhodes also talked about his feud with The Rock that led to their
04:59incredible First Night Mania match.
05:02Today sees the airing of WWE's long-delayed WrestleMania 40 behind-the-scenes documentary
05:06on YouTube, which will cover all of the drama of what went down at the start of this year.
05:11It seems like a lifetime ago, but Cody won the Rumble and made it clear that he wanted
05:15to challenge Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship, and then on an episode of Smackdown, announced
05:20that he was stepping away from that challenge to do so at a later date, and instead step
05:24aside for The Rock to face Roman Reigns for the title at Mania instead.
05:28Reports at the time said this was part of The Rock's deal to come back to WWE and
05:32be part of the board of directors, and other reports have said that Rocky was pushing to
05:37be the guy to dethrone Roman Reigns and win the championship as the People's Champion.
05:43There really is a part of me that wants to see what that timeline looks like.
05:48Not live in it, just see it.
05:50Thankfully, WWE perverted from their plans and went back to their original plan of Cody
05:55vs. Roman and turned Rocky into his final boss heel role.
05:59And speaking of pivoting, during that interview with the Pivot Podcast, Cody talked about
06:03his feelings on The Rock saying that they would butt heads during this period of time
06:08because The Rock came in and took his place at the top of the Mania card.
06:12He added a lot of people said, he's The Rock, he can do whatever he wants.
06:16I even saw a podcast with two wrestling heads talking and they said, I'm sure Cody is fine
06:21stepping aside for WrestleMania and doing it later in the year.
06:24In my mind, I'm thinking, that's insane.
06:26That's the Superbowl of what we do.
06:29To get to Sunday, the last day of WrestleMania, the last match, it's our literal Superbowl.
06:33Boy, I hope I'm not one of those two talking heads he's talking about.
06:38He added that it was nonsense that he would be cool with the idea of The Rock vs. Roman
06:42at WrestleMania.
06:56Yes more than likely this is Cody playing up the feud he had with The Rock earlier this
07:00year, as the reported plan is, he's going to face Rocky at Mania 41 next year, where
07:06the WWE Champion will face The People's Champion.
07:09Cody even alluded to this in that interview when asked when he'll be in the ring with
07:13The Rock again, and he said, if I could give you a guess, I feel like, I hope, it happens
07:18in the next year.
07:19How would you book the return of The Rock and his feud with Cody for next year's Mania?
07:23Let me know in the comments down below.
07:25Not that Raw really needs The Rock right now, because this week saw a huge success for The
07:29Company.
07:31Likely a combination of several things landing with their audience, Dom and Liv's storyline,
07:35the Wyatt Six, the Hot Angle from Smackdown and the lack of big sports competition, but
07:40WWE Raw posted its best rating since the Raw after WrestleMania this week, scoring 1.88
07:47million viewers, and a .62 in the all-important 18-49 demo.
07:53While those numbers all look good, there is one key one to look at.
07:57That .62 in the 18-49 demo isn't just 2% up from last week, it's 29% up from the
08:04same period of time last year.
08:07That means that the over 50 audience that's been WWE's bread and butter for so long
08:11are starting to move away, and a much younger audience is coming in.
08:15As Dave Meltzer writes in his report of the rating on Figure Four Online, this audience
08:20is the most important when it comes to selling tickets and merchandise.
08:24And speaking of big successes, AEW had huge success off the back of this past weekend's
08:29Forbidden Door show with New Japan Pro Wrestling.
08:32Not only did they post their third million dollar gate in a row for a Forbidden Door
08:37show, they sold over 11,000 tickets according to New Japan, who are not known to inflate
08:42numbers like their American counterparts.
08:45WrestleTix, though reporting a slightly smaller number of 10,600, say that NJPW have been
08:50pretty fair about their attendance numbers, so I won't outright refute this.
08:54Even if WrestleTix's number is the correct one, it's still a huge win.
08:58It's worth remembering that one of the genesis points of AEW, that original All In, was built
09:03on the idea that no one outside of WWE had sold over 10,000 tickets for a pro wrestling
09:09event in North America since the death of WCW.
09:12AEW have done it twice, this year alone.
09:15The show was headlined by Will Ospreay challenging Swerve Strickland for his AEW World Championship,
09:20and many wondered why this match was happening all as soon as it was, as many expected Ospreay
09:24to get his shot and win the title at All In in a couple of months time.
09:29However in a fascinating new report from Fightful Select, it was Ospreay who called for this
09:34match to happen now, as he grew tired of seeing that Swerve's title reign was a placeholder
09:39for Ospreay to win at All In, and he extended his desire to put over Swerve to help eliminate
09:46the talking point.
09:47Fightful add that Ospreay wanted to show that no one on the roster should be above losing
09:52to the World Champion, and Forbidden Door proved that point.
09:56In an interesting note, Sean Ross Sapp adds that Swerve vs. Ospreay for the title was
10:00never in the creative plans for All In, and both men have different opponents lined up.
10:05Now go and watch Oli Davis detail the cursed history of Money in the Bank by clicking the
10:09video on screen right now.
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