Cody Rhodes didn’t want to “whine” after his loss to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39.
On the Grandest Stage Of Them All, Rhodes came up short in his quest to “finish the story” by defeating Reigns to capture the title his father was never able to win.
Despite his best efforts and some help from Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, the number game still proved to be too much as Solo Sikoa came to his Tribal Chief’s aid with a Samoan Spike that turned the tide and allowed him to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
“One thing I didn’t want to do was whine.” – Cody Rhodes on WrestleMania 39 loss
During an interview with Ariel Helwani of BT Sport, Rhodes revealed that although Triple H tried to explain why main eventing WrestleMania was important on its own, losing to Reigns still “sucks.”
“I had a really good conversation that night with Triple H where he was really just trying to press upon me how important it was that I just main-evented WrestleMania.
“Even when someone who is one of your favorites, and someone who [I’ve] tried to get their attention and had a unique relationship with. Even when you’re hearing it from them, even from someone who would know. He would know. I still, in my gut, had to say, ‘This sucks. This sucks. This walk is going to suck. My mom is waiting by the bus. Little Brodie is crying. This sucks.'”
In the aftermath of the loss, Rhodes didn’t point to The Bloodline’s interference as the reason for him not getting the job done. The American Nightmare says this was because he didn’t want to “whine.”
“One thing I didn’t want to do was whine. My buddy, Sean Ross Sapp, half-buddy, half-not. He was saying, ‘I wish Cody would talk about how he got screwed at WrestleMania.’ I’m thinking, that’s not the way to do it, I’d be kicking my own ass.
Instead, Rhodes has tried to move on, although he admits he hasn’t got over the match.
“No. The story is unfinished. It is. I wanted to move and try to get back to finishing it. That’s where I was at. I quickly didn’t get over it, it’s not a pain you get over, but I quickly was able to ‘chin up’ and move on to the next thing.
“Coming to Raw was really tough for me, from a character standpoint and a human standpoint. Very tough.”
While the story is unfinished, Rhodes has taken a couple of detours since WrestleMania. First, he engaged in a feud against Brock Lesnar that is currently sitting with one win apiece, and then a rivalry with Dominik Mysterio that came to a head at Money In The Bank when Rhodes soundly defeated him.
H/T to Fightful for the above transcription.