At WrestleMania 40 in 2024, Cody Rhodes finally finished the story and became WWE Champion after dethroning Roman Reigns. Fans were 100% behind him, but as the months passed, crowds cooled on the American Nightmare.
By the time he faced John Cena at the following year's Showcase of the Immortals, Rhodes was being booed by some. In fact, during their WrestleMania 41 match last April, fans in Las Vegas clearly got behind the heel Cena in his quest to win a record-breaking 17th world title.
It was both surprising and not surprising; as Cena is prone to do, he'd highlighted some of Rhodes' real flaws during their clashes on the mic, perhaps giving fans too much of a reason not to back the babyface.
Talking to Chris Van Vliet, Rhodes was asked how it felt to realise that many of the fans in Sin City's Allegiant Stadium were no longer behind him.
"I remember every now and then you see fans say, 'Turn the sound off when you watch it.' I might have already said this on a podcast with you previously, and I’m always thinking, what? The sound is fans are in the ring with us. We are a live performance that interacts with our audience and plays off of what they are giving us. There is no sound off."
"Sorry, I feel strongly about that match. Bobby Roode is probably one of WWE’s absolute best assets. Bobby Roode has a couple of times come up to me and said, 'Hey, it’s going to be an away game.' That was because they show us now [arriving], we love doing these arrivals. I actually don’t mind it, because I could sit right there and go, 'Okay, great. It’s going to be one thing in Louisville, Kentucky, it might be a different thing in Las Vegas.'"
"Somebody said something to me recently, because you talk about, I don’t know if villain is the term, some people might think that’s who I already am. That might be that for them, I might not need to do any more. They might think, no, he’s a bad guy, I’m booing him, or he’s a good guy, I’m cheering him. But somebody said something, and they said it to me in a condescending fashion. They said it as an insult, but I didn’t take it as such, they called me golden boy. I loved it."
"Here’s why I loved it. If you’re new to the game and you’re watching now, I think you can get away with saying that. If you have followed this for more than 5 years, or more than 10, you know that’s not how it started. So I’m not mad at that little statement. You know that I wasn’t even able to walk down the ramp at my first WrestleMania, we went side ramp for the battle royal. That’s a denotation and little nickname that I did not take in a negative fashion, even though it was delivered as such.”
"It’s the difference with hearing them. Stadiums are always tough to hear because that noise does go up. It’s the difference between hearing them and the best way to put it is feeling them. I started feeling them in my rib cage, really, on the old school intros. I love that they’re there for a fight. You get the classic when Michael Cole or Joe Tess or Stu or Corey, or when any of these guys can say a big fight feel, and it actually is a big fight feel that’s amazing. You’ll get that with both WrestleMania main events."
It seems Rhodes wasn't willing to be drawn into discussing a heel turn, something we know WWE isn't planning to commit to heading into this year's WrestleMania.
The current Undisputed WWE Champion is no stranger to fans turning on him—it famously happened in AEW—but nearly a year on from that match with Cena, and the majority are still very much behind him. With so much excitement surrounding The Viper potentially winning his 15th world title, only time will tell how Las Vegas reacts this time around.
You can hear more from the American Nightmare in the player below.