WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes was the main event at WrestleMania 39, and he also stars in a new commercial promoting WWE SuperCard as well as being one of the most popular playable wrestlers in WWE 2K23.
“The American Nightmare” was just named the number one draft pick to WWE Monday Night RAW, which puts him in a prime spot to continue his pursuit of the World Heavyweight Championship. But Cody is also a die-hard Star Trek fan who recently attended the world premiere of Star Trek: Picard season 3.
Screen Rant had the pleasure of interviewing Cody Rhodes about what’s new with WWE SuperCard season 9, playing as himself in WWE 2K23, how he’s regrouping after his loss to Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39, and his thoughts on Star Trek: Picard season 3 as well as what his dream Star Trek role would be.
Cody Rhodes Talks WWE SuperCard, WWE 2K23 & Star Trek: Picard Season 3
Screen Rant: Cody, congrats on being the number one draft pick for Monday Night RAW!
Cody Rhodes: That’s a pretty wild thing to hear. I was hoping I’d go number one, right? You want to go number one overall, but just as long as you can attach ‘one’ to yourself, that’s a special feeling. Also, congrats on that really sweet Ten Forward shirt you have. That’s what you’ve got on, right?
Thanks, man. I’m surprised we didn’t get you one at the Picard premiere.
Cody Rhodes: Aw yeah. That’s a good, good shirt, I’ll tell you. I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten at… There’s a restaurant at Epcot called Space 220. Space 220 is the closest thing I’ve ever been to an actual Ten Forward. Because it’s just a big space just like 10 Forward. It’s just like a big out into space. And it’s just the closest I’ve ever been to a real-life Ten Forward.
I don’t want to make you jealous, but I’ve actually eaten at the real Ten Forward. Last year, they took the Ten Forward set from season 2, and they put it in LA. I got to eat at the captain’s table with my friends, and we actually had like a 10-course meal. It was amazing.
Cody Rhodes: That’s pretty baller. I love that.
All right, let’s get some wrestling business going here. We’re here to talk about WWE SuperCard, which is in its 9th successful season. And there was a new update just released on April 24. Tell us what’s new with SuperCard, Cody.
Cody Rhodes: Like you mentioned, the ninth anniversary of SuperCard. They just had the big update. There’s a big surprise, I believe, coming in the month of May or June. I know for me, it’s become knowledge that I have… what is the number? 33! 33 variations of cards throughout my [career]. Basically, a catalog of everything that I’ve done in my career, the different versions of me, which I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing to see yourself, how you’ve painted yourself so differently over the years. But it’s definitely helpful for me in terms of visually remembering where I was when. When that moment occurred.
It’s a really active fan base. Man, I think that’s what I like about it. Again, ninth anniversary, continuing, I’d say SuperCard [is] a little ahead of the curve in a sense, that a lot of whether it be our figures or whether it be the 2K series, some things we campaign for, and we push for, and then, ultimately, the fan service element of it, we get them. I’ve noticed with SuperCard they kind of sneak things in, in a way. That they’re sometimes the first of in party of things that people want, which is just really what’s encouraging. If you’re just now jumping into SuperCard, it’s not just an active and large community that’s still playing and growing, playing this game, but also your developers and your team really are trying to give people the utmost maximum experience just dominating that card space.
Speaking of video game dominance, WWE 2K23, which is 25% off PlayStation right now, it’s the highest-rated game in the franchise’s history. What’s cool and new with 2K23?
Cody Rhodes: Isn’t it? I think it’s been 14 years since my first appearance in 2K game. For it to be the highest-rated in the series is the absolute best. I know for me, I was very hands-on in terms of the character model. “The American Nightmare ” is a brand that was developed outside of WWE, and WWE being able to just take it. And when they take something that’s yours, and you care about [it], and they’re going to put it out there. The WWE has the largest audience as far as sports entertainment in the world. There’s always a nature of trepidation about “Will they do it right? Will they do it justice?” And my gosh, they’ve been so… loving really is the way to put it… towards my character model, towards the things that I do in the ring, the motion capture itself. I’m very proud.
It took me a while because I didn’t want to be DLC. When I first came back, I really wanted to take the time to get it right. They wanted to take the time to get it right. And they did. And for me, I’ve made it no secret. It’s a goal of mine to earn my way onto the cover of that game. Not unlike Madden and these other great sports and sports entertainment franchises, that actually does mean a lot to the roster as to who’s the cover model. And I want to earn my way onto it. John [Cena] got it this year, and no one deserves it more. But more milestones to come.
I’m really just blessed to reconnect with 2K and the game has been so well received. He was at WrestleMania, Brodie Lee Jr. He loves 2K, loves it. And I was really glad he could play with me — actually play with me versus just the content creation of me. And that certainly made my day. So I’m looking forward to what we do next.
I think we all kind of wonder: when you play 2K23, do you play as yourself?
Cody Rhodes: Yeah! I don’t know, you either have to make the distinction that you never play as yourself, you’ll never do it, that’s ridiculous. Or you just fully go all in and have that pride, and to a degree, that ego. I’ve got enough of an ego that I want to play as myself. I’ve got enough of an ego that I want to know what my score was, and make sure it was at least within the A range, you know, on an old-school chart, essentially. Yeah, no, I’m playing as myself, and I’m not playing as anybody else.
We are a month removed from WrestleMania 39. I was watching at home along with millions of others, we all shared the same heartbreak in your main event against Roman Reigns. I need to ask you, sir, what happened?
Cody Rhodes: I wanted to just simply reply, “Well, I lost.” I’ve been very careful. I know there’s a lot of fans kind of screaming for me to talk about the nature of the loss. And that’s not really in my character to break down how it went down. Because we all saw it. We all saw what happened. I don’t need to be on TV whining about it. It still, at the end of the day, doesn’t change the results. I think in years of WrestleMania it’s the most obvious thing ever. Myself confident that it would happen. My family confident it would happen. A global wrestling fandom confident that it would happen. And that’s the nature of Roman Reigns, and the nature of the industry is you can’t be that confident. Nothing is ever that obvious.
I don’t have a lot of time to grieve on it because I jumped right into something incredibly challenging. Again, incredibly challenging underscores the situation with Brock Lesnar. But let’s just say incredibly challenging for now. And in addition to that, my goal doesn’t change. It doesn’t change. I think Roman had mentioned a few nights before Wrestlemania about what I would do when adversity strikes, and what I had done previously in his eyes, and I think this is kind of that time in your life when you have to, in every sense of it, within the fiction and within the reality, you have to step up and meet the adversity differently than perhaps you ever had before. A lot of challenges here, Brock Lesnar being the pressing and current most important challenge.
But for me, my goal hasn’t changed. What didn’t happen at WrestleMania 39 Is is not something that I look at and say it’ll never happen. To me, even more now than ever, it has to happen. It’s just a matter of when.
That actually leads into my next question, because I was totally caught up with hashtag #FinishTheStory. Does #FinishTheStory mean the same thing? Has it changed a little bit?
Cody Rhodes: No, #FinishTheStory… It’s been nice to kind of clear that up in a sense, that finishing the story, for me, it revolves around one of the titles that Roman has on his shoulders. The title that was linked to the original WWWF in the 1970s that would become the championship belt we grew up with, the winged eagle itself, all that beautiful within the 80s and 90s. The WWE Championship and now it’s the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. But it’s still linked to that very title, and that is Finishing the Story.
And it doesn’t mean there won’t be other stories. It’s a beautiful thing. Again, we were talking about SuperCard and the amount of variations and different stories just within this game representing my career. This is going to be a very interesting year. But for me, #FinishTheStory means the same thing.
Last week, Triple H introduced the new World Heavyweight Championship. What are your thoughts on that? I guess it would be an interesting challenge, you were just talking about the legacy of the original WWF title, to build a new world title legacy from scratch.
Cody Rhodes: I think it’s incredibly difficult in terms of… you can’t just say that something is the most important thing, and the fans and the locker room just accept it. What makes it the most important thing is the type of competition that takes place over it. So with the new championship, and as a big fan of just the design of belts and how they look, it’s an absolutely gorgeous, hunking piece of metal, with all these little nods and almost Easter eggs towards older titles in the past.
I think how it’s laid out, in a sense of who’s competing for it and who’s competing for the lead spot on Monday Night RAW, me having just been drafted to Monday Night RAW, it’s definitely within my cross-hairs. It doesn’t take away from any story that’s wanting to be finished or having been told, but by no means is anyone in the locker room looking down on it. And if anything, everyone’s looking up at it, because you want to be the lead dog on Monday Night RAW.
I cannot let you go without talking about Star Trek. You can imagine how happy I was to meet you at the Picard premiere and to find that you’re a Trekkie, a real Trekkie who really knows his stuff. Wow, what did you think of the Picard finale?
Cody Rhodes: This was such a wild time for me because so many things are happening that I’m a big fan of. So, Picard final season, Mando’s out there rockin’ a season, Tears of the Kingdom is coming out this month. There’s all this stuff happening that’s very much like I have to sit down and take in. I loved, absolutely loved Picard in terms of its final season. The visit to – again, spoiler spoiler – the visit to the old bridge with the crew. This kind of, I don’t know what you would call it, this collection of Datas being the man that was Data. A peaceful Worf. It’s just really, it was special. It really was. Patrick Stewart is, I mean, he’s the captain’s captain, really, truly, with all the flaws and everything.
Again, I won’t get too far into it, spoiler wise, but the enemies that were chosen, the rogues that were chosen for Picard. really made me excited. As a big-time Deep Space Nine fan, really, really made me excited. And then, of course, I think they wrapped it up in a great way. However, they wrapped it up in a great way but also, there’s so many things you could take. So many places you could go.
Strange New Worlds is getting ready to rock. Lower Decks, don’t sleep on Lower Decks. Lower taxes is a dang good piece of Trek content too. But as the eternal pessimist knowing that things come and go. I’m just happy we’re living in this world where so much Trek is happening for me to discuss, watch in real-time, and really jump aboard because all the Trek shows, from TNG, TOS, all of them, I never saw them in real-time. I went back and binged them and became this Trek fan later. So now to be able to talk about it in real-time with my friends who are into the Trek stuff, that’s really cool.
Picard‘s finale set up such cool stuff that could happen that they want to call Star Trek: Legacy. You were part of a group called The Legacy with Randy Orton. It seems to me it would be a natural fit for Cody Rhodes to appear in Star Trek: Legacy and merge the Rhodes legacy with Star Trek.
Cody Rhodes: It’s funny, my schedule is what it is as far as WWE is concerned. And my big rule is when [I’m] in a TV or film project, I still have to be able to make my live events and make TV, which is a tall order for a lot of projects. But I can tell you, my agent in LA [knows] there’s one thing that’s kind of on the alerts, on the notifications, is when it comes to Trek, I’ll take anything. [They] can put me in a whole Gorn outfit where you don’t even know it’s me, I’ll take it. You can put me in the engine room, I’ll take it. I can literally just do something with my face, some sort of recognition on the bridge, Ensign, whatever. I’ll take it. Just to don the uniform would be really, really cool.
That’d be amazing. I would love to see it. You know, Dwayne Johnson was in Star Trek: Voyager back in the day.
Cody Rhodes: It’s such a wild episode that he’s in, too. And then Big Show was in Enterprise as well. There’s already a link with wrestling and Trek. So hopefully, it’s something that can happen. I’d give it my full attention for sure.
About WWE SuperCard
Now in season 9, WWE SuperCard is a digital collectible card game from the creators of NBA 2K, WWE 2K, and WWE 2K Battlegrounds featuring WWE Superstars for iOS and Android.
