SummerSlam will be headlined by John Cena defending his Undisputed WWE Championship against Cody Rhodes, and many fans are convinced that the American Nightmare will finally break bad and turn heel.
Fans have somewhat cooled on Rhodes in recent months, though that was inevitable when he was going up against Cena during his final year in WWE. Despite that, turning Rhodes heel feels like it would be a major misstep on WWE's part, especially if The Rock makes his unwelcome return.
Talking to Gabby LaSpisa about the possibility of a "double turn" at the PLE, Rhodes dismissed the idea and suggested he will continue being who he is...and if the fans turn on him, so be it.
"People talk about, 'Oh, I bet they’re going to do this double turn.' No," Rhodes said. "I think, to take a page out of [Cena’s] book, if they think I’m a heel, then I’m a heel. To me, I’m not changing my game. It would be detrimental to the place I work to make a pivot."
It's hard to say what would be gained from a heel Rhodes, particularly as we only have a few months left of Cena in WWE. Over the past few years, Rhodes has become the new face that runs the place, and taking him down a villainous route would arguably do more harm than good.
During a separate interview with Bill Simmons, Rhodes revealed that not being able to present his father, Dusty, with the WWE Championship still really hurts him.
"I was losing my relationship with people who I had worked with years prior… I was really just kind of developing into a bad apple… But I think the thing that bummed me out the most was I talked to my dad every day, yeah, and I told you, he babied me and thought I was just so good and that was the thing I was most ashamed of, was that that happened and then he died. So my dad didn’t get to do any of the good stuff for his dad."
"That’s the thing that bummed me out the most is I wanted to give my dad the WWE Championship. There’s nothing fake about that story in that quest, I yeah, this was the thing you didn’t get. I’m gonna be the one to get it for you, and we can have it. And I, to this day, I still feel like immense shame over he just missed everything, like I couldn’t get out of that spot. I felt trapped. I was trapping myself. God bless Brandi for putting up with me during that period of time, and I needed to get out."
You can hear more from Rhodes in the player below.