Cody Rhodes On Being Free Of WWE, How It Was To Work For TNA, Kurt Angle, WWE Exclusive Contracts

Cody Rhodes spoke with Wrestledope.com before his spoken word show in Cork, Ireland. You can check out the full interview in the video above, they sent us these highlights:

 

Being free from WWE:
"The feeling, the sensation behind it is, it's exciting to cherry pick and select and be your own boss and to be in control of your own brand, however it's a lot of work."
Wrestling Kurt Angle in UK:
"To have a record crowd for What Culture, to be in there with Kurt Angle and not to be just like Kurt Angle plus garnish. For it instead to be, Kurt Angle V Cody Rhodes, our second match actually, it was very vindicating. It's also nice, you know, the greatest revenge in all the world is success so it's nice to be vindicated."
British Wrestling stars working in the United States:
"In America, we have "The British are coming!", when it comes to the Revolutionary War but I always equate it to the current situation with guys like Will and Marty [Scurll] and Zack [Sabre Jr.] where they are literally like invading America with their talent and the effect and the ramifications of that so it's cool to come over here(UK)".
Exclusive contracts in the business:
"I understand why not. But there is a lot of dated minds and a lot of old school mentality. It's like were almost reverting to the most traditional which is just a dang handshake like, 'Hey I'm glad to be here and I'm going to give you my absolute best.' I worked for a big corporation for a decade for the majority of my youth. Now I really like the opportunity to essentially play my music on as many brands and stuff as I can and Ring of Honor and Impact have been exceptional. They have been exceptional about that, there has been no pushback, it's all lined up exactly how we hoped."
Impact backstage environment:
"My experience was the utmost engine operating at peak efficiency. Billy [Corgan] and Dixie [Carter] were extremely wonderful. All had feedback, creative input. My experience from the time I went and filmed with the corvette in Nashville to when I left the tapings to come overseas was wonderful."

Working with Billy Corgan:
"I'm passed the concept of, Oh he's not a wrestler, he shouldn't be involved in wrestling. He is an entertainer and they fall in line. An entertainer with a ton of equity, worldwide experience, proven. It's Billy man, he's famous!, he's a rockstar!. I thought he was wonderful, great for pro wrestling. He had some music made for me and didn't know I wanted to use my other music. That was one of the hardest moments of perhaps my life. To see his face when I heard the music and know that I'm going to ask him to use my other music. Especially someone who is a musician. It's a moment frozen in time. Me and Billys' relationship I want to build off that moment to where we are good buds because that was a tough one!."
Leaving WWE:
"I did make every effort I possibly could. It just was a matter of, no faith in me at a certain juncture turns around well you know what I don't have faith in you guys either. But let's not end on such a sour note. It's rather dramatic and seems more sour than it really is. It't not, the Rhodes in WWE have a wonderful history. I'm glad they let me go, they are the house that built me and you never now I might be there again one day".

Bully Ray Feels That Dolph Ziggler Should Leave WWE To Revive His Pro Wrestling Career

During a recent episode of the E&C Pod of Awesomeness, Dolph Ziggler admitted that he hates that he is in a tough spot in WWE right now. He added that he wants to be the top guy of the company, and feels that everyone should have that mentality. However, he also understands that there are so many others backstage who feel the same way, and want to have that top spot in the company.

 

Ziggler mentioned the phrase "curse of the worker," which describes someone who has longevity and can work with anyone, but gets relegated to just that without having long periods of time as "the guy" in WWE. Former WWE Tag Team Champion Bubba Ray Dudley discussed this term, as well as his thoughts on Ziggler's WWE career, on a recent episode of Busted Open Radio.

Bubba Ray agrees with Ziggler's term, as well as the stigma that comes with it.

"It's the truth. You never want to have that stigma," said Bubba Ray. "You never wanna be known as, 'He's a good little worker.' Because when you are a good little worker, the 'curse of the worker,' that's the role that you fit in. A boss looks at you as, 'Ok. He's the guy that I can put in any role at any given time. And since there aren't a lot of guys like that, you get put in a weird spot. That spot is, your gonna make a very, very good living, we're gonna keep you around for a long time, but you're never gonna be 'the guy.' Maybe, every once in a while, we'll shuffle you up to the main event, but it's only gonna be for a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and then we're gonna double park you back on the back burner for when we need you again. And that is what Dolph Ziggler has been going through for a long time."

Concerning Ziggler's last contract renewal, Bubba Ray firmly believes that Ziggler had "one and a half feet out the door, and at the very last second, Vince probably step in and gave him stupid money, and that's why he stayed."

At this point, Bubba Ray feels that Ziggler cannot do anything right now to get him out of this quicksand. This is because WWE nowadays is about waiting for Creative to have something for you, compared to the old days when people thrived to get over with the crowd, which boosted their status in the company. A prime example of this, as they discussed, was Ziggler winning the World Heavyweight Championship in the most thunderous MITB cash-in to date, and received that reaction even as a heel, but shortly went back to filling the "curse of the worker" role again.

Bubba Ray feels that the best option right now to help Ziggler's career would be to compete for House of Hardcore, and Ring of Honor as a second choice.

 "Dolph Ziggler in a place like House of Hardcore would be amazing," said Bubba Ray. "I would love to see Dolph in a House of Hardcore, my second choice would be a Ring of Honor, but I definitely think once he gets out there, and allowed to be the version of Dolph Ziggler that he knows he can be, and the version that we've seen glimpses up in the past, [he'll do well]."

The biggest issue with Ziggler, Bubba Ray feels, is that Dolph has been around for too long in the WWE. He feels that the good news is that Ziggler would get paid a lot of money for a long time working in WWE, but the bad news is that "he'll never main event WrestleMania." Bubba Ray feels that Ziggler should leave WWE and revive is name in other promotions. Bubba Ray added, "He's still going out there and trying to steal the show every night, so he's still passionate about it. He's just so unhappy. He's stuck in a perpetual state of mediocrity. He's in what I like to call wrestling quicksand: every single time you try to get out, you get sucked back down lower. And after a while, man does that get frustrating."

What? Sid Vicious no showing a booking? Say it ain't so.

John Thorne's Absolute Intense Wrestling announced the following:

We have some bad news to report. Our greatest fears have come true,Sid did not board his flight this morning. After several phone calls he finally answered when we used Swoggle's phone to call.

Sid claimed Donald Trump's travel ban prevented him from boarding his flight to Cleveland this morning because of an unpaid speeding ticket and he claimed this is new government policy since he didn't have his passport even though he was traveling within the United States and is a United States Citizen. We recorded his cancelation call just so there is proof of all this and we we will do our best to play the audio tonight or on a future episode of our podcast.

We apologize to all of the fans who were excited to meet Sid tonight and unfortunately this is something 100% out of our control. We invested quite a bit of money in this appearance and we have now lost out on close to $1,000 we will never get back on airline tickets, hotels, and merchandise we had made for Sid.

We are going to try and do our best to find a replacement and plan on spending the rest of the day making phone calls and trying to get somebody there to replace Sid.

For those unfamiliar with AIW, they are a quality independent group who go out of their way to bring in unique names and give back to the fans that support them.   It's unfortunate this is how they are going to close out their 2017.