‘As Real As It Gets’

Cody Rhodes is on top of the wrestling world.

The 40-year-old enters WrestleMania 42 as the top wrestler in the WWE. Rhodes is the Undisputed WWE Champion and will main event Wrestlemania for the fourth consecutive year as he faces off with his former stable mate, Randy Orton, in wrestling’s biggest event of the year.

It’s quite the evolution for Rhodes, who was booked mostly as a mid-card and tag team act during his first run with the WWE (2007-2016). Rhodes — the son of the great Dusty “The American Dream” Rhodes — has become the face of the post-John Cena era WWE.

After carving out his “American Nightmare” character in the indies and in AEW, Rhodes made his triumphant return to the WWE at WrestleMania 38 in 2022, defeating one of the best wrestlers of this generation, Seth Rollins.

Ever since then, Rhodes has been a fixture in the main event scene, feuding and knocking off the likes of Cena, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. For the first time since becoming an established main eventer in the WWE, he’ll be feuding with Orton — his former Legacy stablemate and the man he had his first WWE match with in 2007.

Rhodes faced off against Cena in last year’s WrestleMania main event as the latter chased his world title record 17th championship reign.

“Well, it’s full circle in a way,” said Rhodes of facing off against Orton in a one-on-one interview. “Last year was similar, whereas I always referred to John Cena a little bit as the angel on my shoulder, and Randy Orton as the devil on the other shoulder. These were two guys who literally were so formative and shaping for me as I came up and teaching me and different methods, of course, and the fact that I got to wrestle John Cena at WrestleMania as he was going for the record, and now to stand across from a guy who I have almost 20 years of equity with makes it so that our match is as real as it gets.”

There’s no sugarcoating it, there’s a lot of history between Rhodes and Orton. While Rhodes was a part of Orton’s Legacy stable in the late 2000s, he was involved in some of the biggest feuds in the WWE with some of the biggest stars, including the likes of DX, which featured Shawn Michaels and Triple H.

When the stable broke up, he had a triple threat match against Orton at Wrestlemania 26 and also had a singles feud with him in 2011 as an established singles star.

The storyline this time around is that Orton is chasing his 15th world title reign — his first since 2020 — as he looks to continue to add to his legacy and potentially exceed Cena’s number of world title reigns.

Orton has even reverted back to his heel Viper gimmick from 2009, one that is well remembered and the character that many fans associate with the wrestling great.

“That’s a word that’s uniquely thrown around in pro wrestling, but the history is real,” said Rhodes. “The fact that when I step into the ring wearing the WWE Championship, and look across the ring and there’s Randy Orton, I’ll be waiting for him to look back at me and see me, and see me not just as a little kid anymore, see me as the guy who’s about to beat him. That’s the good stuff in what we do. I’m not going to speak negatively in terms of Randy Orton, unless I get a black suit on and go nuts on Raw, which is always possible.

“But I will say this ‘Mania this year, both nights at Allegiant stadium, I think this sets the tone for WWE moving forward,” Rhodes continued. “Because not only do you have the upper tier, you’ve got Roman Reigns versus CM Punk, myself versus Randy Orton, the two main events, but you’ve got Oba Femi who’s facing off against Brock Lesnar. And you’ve got Trick Williams wrestling for the United States Championship. You’ve got young men and women who are making their way into the world for the first time, and that’s very, very exciting.”

Despite being the heel in this feud, Orton has garnered many cheers from the crowd for his devilish antics, which includes attacking and bloodying Rhodes along with fellow fan favorite Matt Cardona on recent episodes of Smackdown.

On a recent episode of Monday Night Raw at Madison Square Garden, Stephanie McMahon — who was prominently featured in the ’09 feud involving her husband Triple H and Orton — warned Rhodes that he won’t be able to defeat this version of Orton.

“You mentioned ’09 Randy Orton, and I’ll just kind of point this out — I’m not trying to be a downer on anyone’s parade or rain on their parade when it comes to ’09 Randy, but Randy did burn everything in his path, and did pump people left and right, and was absolutely the Viper and vicious and all those things,” said Rhodes. “And then he went to WrestleMania, he wrestled Triple H, and he lost. If they’re following the thread, if they’re pulling the ’09 Randy thread and ‘Hey, there’s no wrong way to be a fan.’ They cheer, they boo, whatever they do, just remember the history might repeat itself here.”

Cody Rhodes On Having His Own Drumstick Flavor, The First Of Its Kind

Rhodes is partnering with Drumstick — the well-known ice cream brand — for his own special flavor. The Drumstick Red, White & Blueberry is a limited-edition flavor that will be released exclusively at Walmart for a limited time starting on April 6 leading into WrestleMania 42.

The flavor features strawberry frozen dessert swirled around a blueberry sauce core, topped with a white confectionary coating and crispy rice pieces. For the first time, Drumstick will deviate from its signature chocolate coating.

Drumstick is kicking off the second year of its partnership with TKO, previously partnering with Cena last year.

“I’m very excited for Drumstick: Red, White and Blueberry,” said Rhodes. “It’s white chocolate on the top, and that’s the first time somebody has gotten their own flavor, and they’ve had a lot of partners. This is Drumstick, this is something we grew up with. This is the one. I can tell you it’s that good and you will love it. I kept an account on how many we were eating when we did the official commercial, which is coming out. I think we landed at 11 drumsticks over the course of the day. A lot of fun for the ice cream peeps.”

Rhodes speaks on what a “smell the roses” type of moment this is for him now that he’s the first and only person to get their own flavor with Drumstick. Drumstick has been around since 1928.

“I feel like you think of all the things like action figures and the video game and of course internally WrestleMania and the main event and all that,” said Rhodes. “But then you have these real smell the roses type moments, or smell the Drumstick type moments where that’s such a ridiculously cool thing. That’s the type of thing that my mom, she’s got 25 sisters and all of them, they’re going to go to these various supermarkets, and they’re going to see this, and then they’re going to tell me about seeing it, and that really pops me. That makes me excited, the fact that this will be out there, and kids will be eating, and the fact that it’s really good, that’s cool.”