Why Cody Rhodes Is So Dashing

Cody Rhodes

In a previous blog post, Making New Ground. Sort Of, I wrote that under the wings of Randy Orton the members of Legacy - Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase - didn't make much, if any, ground during the time of that particular stable. That's undoubtedly a miserable failure if one of your main eventers can't elevate two mid-card wrestlers -- when it's specifically what he's supposed to be doing! What was the point of Legacy in the first place if it did nothing for the younger guys involved?

Cody as a member of Legacy

It was Randy Orton who eventually went over at Wrestlemania 26 in a Triple Threat match between himself and his former protegés. But when the feud ended there, the beaten men were back at square one. It was now completely up to them to try and elevate themselves up to the upper-mid-card or main event level.

Ted DiBiase stayed on Raw and found it hard getting a push at the best of times. On one episode, he was totally jobbed out by John Cena, who showed the second-generation superstar absolutely no respect. It was the low point of his post-Mania solo run. In an effort to put his career back on track, he resurrected the Million Dollar Man persona that his father used to such great effect in the eighties. It's not a great sign when you have to resort to a gimmick that your dad employed several years ago. . .

Cody, on the other hand, didn't seem to be going anywhere either, at first. He was moved to Smackdown! in the WWE Draft and then paired with a Rookie, Husky Harris, on NXT. It was apparent that he was not high priority for Creative.

In need of a push in the right direction, Cody revealed his brand new disposition:

I must admit, I love this new side of Cody. It's unleashed something in him that we're only beginning to see. He's brash, confident, cocky and tremendously suave on-screen right now. In my opinion, a lot of the best stuff in pro-wrestling is the really simple stuff. Cody's personality is simple: he's a good-looking guy and he knows it. There's nothing that a crowd finds more boo-inducing than someone who likes to tell you how good he is while insulting the viewers at the same time. The same goes for someone who continually tells you how handsome and "dashing" he is, and then says the opposite about his audience. Rhodes has just about perfected it really, and generates a great deal of heat on SD! now. The real test will be to stick him on Raw, and if he can make it work there, then he will have synched it.

I just hope he can continue to be as entertaining in his promos as he has been over the past two months:

His character has also been moulded effectively in a number of ways as well. Most notably, there's the mirror beneath the titantron that he uses for his entrance...

...and, of course, his fantastic Grooming Tips that we've been seeing for the past six or so weeks on SD!

Considering how SD! was practically pillaged in the aforementioned Draft, Cody Rhodes is one of the best things on display every Friday night. Even better is the fact that he's getting a bit of a push at the moment. He recently defeated both Matt Hardy and Christian in consecutive weeks and it now appears that he'll be in a mini-feud involving them, himself and Drew McIntyre. Hopefully that will go somewhere, but with the "sinister Scotsman" involved, Gods only knows if it will go anywhere at all.

As I said earlier, Cody has also been appearing on NXT, where he was mentoring his Rookie Husky Harris until he was eliminated just over two weeks ago. In my estimation, Rhodes has been one of the best Pros in the show's entirety, perhaps only bettered by The Miz, which is understandable once you consider the roll that Mr.MITB has been on this year. He's shot some amusing and entertaining promos on this Tuesday night programme, including this one: 

I always got the feeling on NXT that Cody did the best job at trying to put his Rookie over, aside from maybe LayCool (Michelle McCool and Layla) and their great work with Kaval. I think that's partly evidenced in his reaction (or overreaction, depending on how you look at it) to Husky's elimination. And Cody is still going great on the show without Harris, cutting another good promo last week and won in a decent, if long, match against MVP.

It certainly looks as if the son of Dusty Rhodes and brother of Dustin "Goldust" Runnels is finally getting somewhere. Let's just hope he can stay. . . dashing!