Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble 2023 and challenged Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Everyone expected him to be the one to get the title belts off Reigns.
But what happened at WrestleMania? Cody Rhodes lost. The fans were quite furious at this booking, as all they had heard leading up to the show was that Rhodes would win. Even the American Nightmare was told this, but plans changed.
DDP recently talked about this and explained why Rhodes losing the first title around was actually good for his storyline.
Diamond Dallas Page Speaks On Cody Rhodes Losing At WrestleMania 39
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet recently, DDP says (h/t Cultaholic) that Cody Rhodes was very upset when he lost the match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39. But the legend told him that this was good for him because now the fans were going to root for him more than ever before.
“I look at him losing that first time, I’ll never forget that conversation that we had because he was told he was going over that first time, for a long time. Then things started to change, and they do. They just change. I would never believe something as big as that was going to happen until I was on my way to the ring and there was no way they could change it.
“But I said to him, I said, ‘Really? Is it really that bad if you don’t win? Is it really? Because I knew you were going to say that.’ I said, ‘You know man? You don’t win, they want it more.’ And then following year, where are you? And he has to go through the hurdles with The Rock and all of that.
DDP’s own philosophy about something like this is that, no matter how it may look in the moment, they’ve always turned out to be a blessing in disguise for him.
“There’s one thing I try to instil in everyone, because Cody’s not the only person that I talk to coming up through the business. I talk to a lot of kids, men and women. Something that looks like the worst thing that happens to you, in my life, in my vision, the video game I’m playing, it has always been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Cody Rhodes eventually managed to unseat The Tribal Chief at WrestleMania 40. He’s currently one of the top wrestlers in WWE and is considered the face of the brand by most fans.
Main image credit: Imago
Ishaan Sharma has been following wrestling ever since he was 8. That was over a decade ago. He loves to write about this pretend sport and has worked with online publications such as Sportskeeda and TheSportster, where he shared his insights about the wrestling business.