Cody Rhodes Reveals How Stephanie McMahon Outburst Led To Stardust Character
Recently on Talk Is Jericho, pro wrestling legend Chris Jericho spoke with IWGP United States Champion Cody [Rhodes] aboard the aforementioned podcast host's "Rock 'N' Wrestling Rager At Sea" cruise. Among many other things, Cody talked about his relationship with his brother, Dustin, also known as WWE Superstar Goldust. Also, Cody shared how the Stardust character was pitched to him in WWE.
On the subject of Cody's brother, Dustin, 'The American Nightmare' explained that the Runnels boys have great love for each other, but very little in common.
"Who has got siblings? Brothers? Sisters? Alright?" Cody explained, "so me and Dustin's situation is a little different. He's, I don't know, 20 years older than me. We didn't grow up in the same household. We absolutely love each other. If he needed someone in his foxhole, I'm there. But we don't have a lot in common. We don't like any of the same things. One guys is super early. The other guy is super late. It's just weird. [Dustin is an 'old school brother'] big time, big time."
Apparently, Dustin got upset when Jericho complemented Cody on his performance as Stardust for "out Goldusting Goldust".
"[Jericho] paid me a compliment that my brother heard and ooh?" Cody continued, "I did these Stardust vignettes backstage, and they had made the star room for me, and they put a star filter on the camera, so there was a large investment in it and I really just wanted to go for it because it was essentially like wearing a mask. 'Oh, when you wear a mask, you can do anything,' and Fit Finlay told me, 'you can fall down; you can goof around; you're no longer in any jeopardy of looking silly. This is silly enough.' So we did this one backstage [vignette], and it went really well, and Chris came up to us and he goes? and he was real excited because Chris is one of those who is really good about telling others in the locker room when they did good jobs, which is a thing that's missing, by the way. Everyone just [says], 'oh yeah?' But anyways, he came up and he said, 'you've out Goldusted Goldust.' And I was like, 'oh, thank you so much!'
"I'm just standing there in this trash bag of a suit, and my face is all painted up, and I already feel like a d——d, and Dustin kind of like, all eight feet of him, shook his head and walked away, and I go, 'oh no! That was it.' And every night after, it was 'Stardust is over.' 'No, no, no, Goldust is over.' 'Oh, Goldust is taking the heat.' 'No, my shoulder. Stardust will be taking the heat.' 'Okay.'"
When asked how the Stardust character was pitched to him, Cody divulged that it was Stephanie McMahon's idea, which Vince McMahon overheard and liked. Initially, Cody thought the new character would be a proverbial breath of fresh air; however, Vince envisioned a character more similar to Goldust than Cody would have liked.
"Oh man, [Stardust was pitched] just in the worst way ever. We had a fun little run. We never wanted to team together, but when we did, it was successful. And we did stuff with The Shield and have [Big] Show involved. We did dad's last stand there in Buffalo [New York] and all that, so we found a lot of love and bond. When we've been together for a little while as a team, there is something cool about teaming with your brother. There's a very real dynamic and a protective element to it, but I think they just thought it was getting a little stale, so God bless her, Stephanie McMahon, just randomly blurted out in gorilla [position], 'why don't you paint your face like your brother?' And I'm looking, like, 'ah?' just trying to get out of the curtain, just trying to get out of the curtain, and then I saw the old man, I saw Vince just [imitating Vince], 'yes!' And he came out of gorilla, headset off, and he gave me the creative services guys' info. Creative services is like a defunct brand."
Cody added, "in a week, they make me all these cool designs and none of them look like Goldust and I thought, 'oh, this is great! I'm going to be a superhero! It was so cool. We paint your hair silver.' And as it got closer and closer and closer, Vince just kept picking the one that looked more and more like Goldust, more and more like Goldust, and I was just kind of like a Minidust by the end of it all."
Check out the 'Pod Of Thunder And Rock 'N' Roll' here. If you use an of the quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Talk Is Jericho