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00:00Atlanta, Georgia, it's home to many of professional wrestling's most memorable moments.
00:08From Dusty Rhodes taking on Ric Flair at Starrcade 1985.
00:13Dusty Rhodes is done!
00:15To Goldberg defeating Hulk Hogan inside a packed Georgia Dome.
00:20Hulk Hogan!
00:23The first undefeated man in the history of this sport to ever win the world championship.
00:30And, of course, Triple H battling The Undertaker at WrestleMania 27.
00:36A planet-sized main event here.
00:39This is where it all started for many of the most well-known names in the world.
00:44In the heart of the city, center stage theater.
00:47And it was forbidden territory for a McMahon.
00:52But with an invitation from WWE champion Cody Rhodes,
00:56I was welcomed with open arms and anxious to embrace the place Cody first began to fall in love with professional wrestling.
01:05What's up, champ?
01:07Welcome to Center Stage.
01:10Allow me to properly introduce you to the American nightmare, Cody Rhodes.
01:16There are no stars bigger than this man, the pinnacle of the industry, Cody Rhodes.
01:23A man whose journey to the top of the industry inspired a new generation of wrestling fans.
01:29I got to meet Cody.
01:30I gave him a picture.
01:32Cody's athleticism in the ring.
01:35Crossroads!
01:36And love of story are combined with his unrivaled connection with the audience, putting him in a class of his own.
01:47How are you?
01:48Good.
01:49How are you?
01:50Good, good, good, good, good.
01:51How do you feel standing here in this spot with the WWE championship?
01:57It feels like I'm not supposed to be, but also it feels like I'm absolutely 100% supposed to be.
02:07I'm Stephanie McMahon and I love WWE.
02:11Stephanie McMahon!
02:15I'm on a quest to hear the stories behind the biggest superstars and legends in WWE history.
02:21Here we go.
02:23So come join me on the trip of a lifetime.
02:27Cody grew up in Marietta, Georgia, just 30 miles outside of Atlanta.
02:38In the early 90s, this was the home of World Championship Wrestling, WWE's competition,
02:46and Center Stage Theater was the place for its flagship show, WCW Saturday Night.
02:53We are coming to you from Center Stage Theater on West Beach Street in Atlanta.
02:56This is WCW Saturday Night.
03:01I feel like I'm in enemy territory.
03:03It is pretty surreal.
03:05I don't think anyone who grew up here during when I grew up would think you would ever be
03:09at Center Stage.
03:10Right?
03:10A lot of history.
03:12Cody and I are kids of the business, or as Cody calls us, Nepo Babies.
03:16Cody's father, one of the biggest stars in the history of the industry, was the American
03:23Dream, Dusty Rhodes.
03:25Get a dream, hold on to it, and shoot for the sky!
03:31Dusty was a critical part of WCW's success, both as a performer and a producer.
03:38My co-host for this broadcast, the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes!
03:44The fans loved Dusty, including his son Cody, who at seven years old was just a kid in the
03:51crowd watching his dad go to work.
03:53This was Center Stage for WCW's Saturday Night.
03:59I spent a huge chunk of my childhood here.
04:04Like where?
04:04More up there by that letter A.
04:07Was that primarily your spot?
04:09Yeah, unless I was doing a little work, you know, the nepotism PA work?
04:13Yeah.
04:13Where you're running and getting drinks and things of that nature that give you something
04:16to do.
04:17But I always like to be in the furthest back, uh, to see it.
04:21Think about going to a wrestling show at eight years old.
04:25Look at these outfits.
04:26The smoke, the fire, the music, every piece of it.
04:30It's just an energy to pro wrestling.
04:32It's just magic.
04:34If you bring someone sitting under that A to watch this, what on earth would I want to
04:39do?
04:40That's true.
04:40What on earth?
04:41I just saw the road warriors run down here and the spiked shoulder pads.
04:44Right.
04:44I'm sure there's jobs that are equally fulfilling, but this just seemed like the way to go.
04:51Cody was eager to take me on a trip down memory lane.
04:59Here, I want to say this is less programming and more him telling the local folks we've got
05:07a great television taping.
05:08The Stinger's going to be right out here, live in the colors I said, talking to me and
05:12him though, tonight is going to be fantastic.
05:16He probably thought it was the greatest thing ever because very likely he booked it.
05:22Anecdote here or there, a joke here and there, loosening them up.
05:26WCW Saturday night flourished and ultimately attracted megastars Hulk Hogan and the macho
05:32man Randy Savage, who both crossed over from WWE to sign with WCW.
05:40This one here though, is probably the most stirred up this building ever was.
05:44My guest at this time, the macho man Randy Savage and WCW heavyweight champion of the world,
05:50Hulk Hogan!
05:54Hulk Hogan and Randy Macho Man Savage.
05:57The greatest stars of the 1980s.
06:00This indeed is the Mega Powers.
06:03The Mega Powers are in Georgia.
06:06So what you're going to do when the macho man and all our Hulkamaniacs run wild on you?
06:14Just that alone, like, that's really...
06:17Like shock.
06:18That's macho man?
06:19What?
06:20It was one of those where you left here, you had to tell somebody, you can't believe what's
06:23going on there.
06:25They have Hulkamania now in WCW.
06:28The most prolific, profitable superstar in the history of the industry, stunning Steve
06:35Austin.
06:37Years before he blazed a trail in WWE as Stone Cold Steve Austin, stunning Steve Austin was
06:44an up-and-coming wrestler in WCW.
06:47Many consider that man the finest pure athlete in WCW.
06:52And Cody had a few run-ins with the rising star.
06:55At one time, babysat you.
06:58Babysat me in this building.
06:59In this building.
06:59And was a legit real babysitter in terms of my dad had to go out and do a meeting.
07:04Hey, will you watch him?
07:05And most of the guys at that age really didn't feel like he needed to watch me, but he actually
07:09would kind of check in.
07:10Hey, all right, kid.
07:11All right.
07:11And then pop back out.
07:12And I thought years later, watching him, you know, Stone Cold Steve Austin, you know,
07:16romp and stomp and doing everything, changing the industry.
07:19And there's the bottom line.
07:21Go Stone Cold.
07:22Set the sun.
07:23If you were in this building, you knew.
07:26And Stone Cold Steve Austin was awesome.
07:28I want you.
07:29Oh, I want that match with Hacksaw Jim Duggan.
07:34He was outstanding.
07:35And I feel like if you saw him, you weren't surprised.
07:38Maybe the character and everything that was for, you'd never seen anything like that.
07:41But you could feel it in him.
07:42Yeah.
07:46Did you always want to work in the business?
07:50Can I ask you the same question?
07:51Yeah.
07:51That was it, right?
07:52Yeah.
07:53Was there anything else that appealed to you?
07:54No.
07:55My dad, he was very concerned.
07:59Very, very concerned.
08:00But once I said, I'm in, I got to go.
08:02He was big on, okay, we're going to do it to be the absolute best.
08:06Cody Rhodes, the young son of Dusty Rhodes, in his first match on Monday Night Raw with his dad at ringside.
08:14When the opportunity came, nobody was more ready than me.
08:18As a young WWE superstar, Cody found success in the ring, winning championships as a tag team performer.
08:26His first championship in the WWE.
08:30And singles competitor.
08:31Cody Rhodes won the intercontinental title.
08:34He also found the love of his life, Brandi.
08:37Come to find out their romance has quite the controversial beginning.
08:44My wife, Brandi, was backstage getting ready to announce superstars.
08:48And the story she tells is different.
08:50But she was in the hall and they had given her a real, like, Texas big hair.
08:54I was telling her, as her peer, you can't go out there like that.
08:58And to her, it was this entry-level flirtation.
09:02I thought she was, again, beautiful in the most amazing eyes I've ever seen in my life, locked in.
09:08But in that moment, I was legit telling her.
09:10Once she assumed that I had flirted with her, and I went to give the half hug, which is an appropriate hug for peers,
09:17and she blew in my ear.
09:19And at that point, I thought...
09:21That is definitely flirting.
09:23Dashing Cody Rhodes is a real thing.
09:28There's always more than one side of a story.
09:31So I tracked down Brandi to hear what she had to say.
09:37Earlier today, I had the opportunity to ask Cody all about your love story.
09:42And he said you may have a different version of it.
09:45This is probably what he told you that was wrong.
09:48I gave him a hug, just like everybody else is getting a hug.
09:51And he says I blew in his ear.
09:53Yes, that's what he told me.
09:54That is not true.
09:55I was just breathing.
09:57I was just breathing.
09:58Like I said, you blew in his ear.
10:03It's crazy, right?
10:04Yeah.
10:04Yeah.
10:04So I was just like, okay, Cody, we'll let you think.
10:06We'll let you think.
10:07He wanted you to do.
10:08Right.
10:08We'll let him think I blew in his ear.
10:10Um, but then from that point on, you know, we just started, there was trust.
10:14So we started hanging out.
10:16Now we got the real scoop.
10:17That's the real story.
10:18Just breathing, guys.
10:19I think just meant to be.
10:21Well, with that piece of the Rhodes family history finally straightened out, Cody and I moved on to another chapter of his family's legacy.
10:31This is the WWWF Heavyweight Championship at the time of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation.
10:38Five decades ago, before it was called WWE, it was known as the Worldwide Wrestling Federation, a regional promotion in the Northeast run by my grandfather, which had its mainstays, such as champion, superstar Billy Graham.
10:56In the late 70s, my dad was just coming up as a special attraction.
11:01He gets in these matches with superstar Billy Graham.
11:03And they had a title match, MSG.
11:06To the road.
11:07Oh, go.
11:08Right on target.
11:09In the heat of the match, Graham was sent to the outside and was unable to get back into the ring in time, forcing the referee to count Graham out of the match and award the victory to none other than Dusty Rhodes.
11:23So he wins the match.
11:26Lance, eating it up.
11:28However, the rules stipulate that a championship could not change hands on a countout decision.
11:33But what he did was the right thing for the arena that night, he still won the match, so he grabbed the title, he put it around his waist quickly, he went up on the buckle, he held it up so the people could feel it.
11:46That he did, that he did, he won, he's the champion.
11:48And then the boom gets dropped.
11:51The winner, but not the new world champion, Dusty Rhodes.
11:56While Dusty would go on to win many titles in his Hall of Fame career, he never got closer to capturing the WWE championship than on that night in 1977.
12:08As I got older, I thought he could have been the lead dog at WWE, I thought he really should have actually, I was looking at it from the business perspective, so there's this anger, not resentment, but almost this, I want to validate him.
12:25As silly as this is, I wanted to get it for him, so I could show it to him, and my big plan was, I'll get it for him, and I'll say, hey, nobody can take it away from you now.
12:36Cody's dream of winning that championship for his father drove him for decades, but sadly, Dusty Rhodes passed away in 2015 and never got to see his son win the championship.
12:53At the time, Cody was portraying a comical character called Stardust.
12:59Pick a card, Indy card.
13:04Got him one more time, sorry.
13:05Behind the scenes, Stardust was not seen as a legitimate contender for the WWE championship.
13:14Stardust was locking me out of the top of the card.
13:18That was rock bottom.
13:19I had to get out.
13:21In the end, trust your instincts, so.
13:23Trust your gut.
13:23Yeah.
13:24In 2016, a creatively frustrated Cody made the bold decision to leave the big crowds of WWE to perform on what is akin to the minor leagues, the independent wrestling circuit, and recreate himself.
13:38I had to create stories about, oh, this person was pushing me down.
13:43I've got to show them all of the, you need all of that.
13:46When you leave anywhere, you just lose everything.
13:47You have to legit burn the boats.
13:49Because the fear is, if you're out in the ocean, you're going to want to swim back.
13:53Cody Rhodes, first wrestling match since leaving World Wrestling Entertainment.
13:58With a fresh outlook on life, Cody became the American Nightmare, an homage to his father, the American Dream, and even helped start an alternative wrestling promotion to WWE.
14:12It seemed history was repeating itself.
14:16This man has certainly made some waves in his post-WWE career.
14:22That takes so much courage.
14:24A lot of times, people in life, they're not happy with where they are, they're not happy with their job, or whatever it is.
14:30But most people don't jump.
14:32And I think it's a lot out of fear.
14:34Fear of the unknown.
14:35Sure.
14:36How did you conquer that?
14:38I would have been the laughingstock of the business had that not worked out.
14:42It's all about Cody on his own.
14:47Scared to death, for sure, but the classic, saddling up anyways.
14:51That's really how I approach everything in our world.
14:55Cody's gamble of leaving WWE paid off.
14:59In his six years away, he had built himself into a global attraction.
15:04A main event star that could not be denied.
15:07And in 2022, at WrestleMania 38, the American Nightmare made his grand return to WWE.
15:16I mean, it's really remarkable what you were able to do.
15:35And then to come back, you know, to WWE at a totally different level, as a completely different star.
15:42The fans who had followed him throughout his career were ecstatic to have Cody back home where he belonged.
15:50And Cody returned the favor by making a memory with one special fan every night.
15:55A true pro week in and week out, feeding off the adulation of the WWE universe.
16:02And what a moment for that lucky young man presented with Cody's weight belt.
16:08Cody's next step was to fulfill the promise he had made for his father to win the WWE championship.
16:16I'm going to give the distinction that my family has long since been denied.
16:21And I'm going to do it for the American Dream Dusty Rhodes.
16:27The next year at WrestleMania 39, Cody had the opportunity to compete for the WWE championship.
16:37Unfortunately, Cody was unable to prevail.
16:40WrestleMania 39, when you didn't win the title, are there parallels to that night in the garden for your dad?
16:52I think there's parallels to it.
16:55And I think there's a moment of doubt and trepidation where you think, okay, yeah, we're not good enough.
17:02The beauty of WrestleMania 39 is even with that doubt, maybe we're not.
17:06I'm still going full speed, though.
17:10WrestleMania 40, Cody got his second chance and once again challenged Roman Reigns for the WWE championship.
17:32And here we go, big fight feel in Philadelphia.
17:37Rhodes now second row, Cody Conner!
17:39Looking up to the heavens, Cody Rhodes knows his papa's looking down on him on the biggest night of his career.
17:50Finished!
17:51The story!
17:53For the first time, a Rhodes can call himself WWE champion!
18:02To me, I'm still a child who wants to, I want to do what he did.
18:12And, uh, I got it.
18:14So I count myself incredibly lucky.
18:17Get a dream, hold on to it, and shoot for the sky!
18:21Cody Rhodes has finally done what he set out to do.
18:25To get it, to validate him, also, at that point, validate myself.
18:31To me, it was the greatest story for our family and wrestling and sports entertainment that we could have.
18:38I think the beginning of your music is very fitting.
18:43Oh!
18:44That there's more than one royal family.
18:46I think the beginning of your music is very fitting.
18:58Oh!
18:59That there's more than one royal family.
19:01I-I love that you know the song.
19:04I recorded that weeks after I left WWE the first time, and to this day, we still use that audio sample.
19:11My goal, actually, is, I don't know if she'd want to do this, the beginning of my song, the little voiceover that exists,
19:17I'd love my daughter to do it at one point.
19:19Oh, my God!
19:20Oh!
19:21Just because, uh, I want her to have a good experience in this.
19:25I had the best experience, but certainly, you can't predict the highs and the lows and all that it's going to be, but-
19:32No, you can't!
19:33No, no.
19:34You certainly cannot.
19:36Yeah, I am, again, opportunity showed up, opportunity knocked, I was able to answer, and very lucky.
19:45WrestleMania 40 was the crowning moment of Cody's career, and following that match backstage, he got a very special surprise.
19:56So, we all got together and, uh, got you this.
20:00Triple H had a gift for me, and it was this Rolex.
20:06My dad had this exact Rolex, and I thought when he passed away, like, oh, I'll get the Rolex, he told me that one day that will be yours.
20:16Finally, after, you know, the dust settles a little bit on funeral services and handing out of things and all this and wills and all that terrible stuff,
20:25my mom and I are sitting down, and I asked her about it, and she told me, oh, I thought you knew.
20:30He- he pawned it.
20:32So, I had this kind of fear of Rolexes, actually, like, oh, I- that's not meant to be.
20:38It's another case of it's not meant to be for me.
20:43This is what, you know?
20:45I will wear it with, uh, the utmost pride, and obviously I will wear this with the utmost pride.
20:55I have the whole world.
20:57How could you guys give me any more?
20:59And, gosh, what do I owe you now?
21:01Right?
21:02What- what do-
21:03Your life.
21:04What do I-
21:05What do I owe you?
21:07I already want to be, like, the biggest ambassador to WWE as champion, but what do I owe you?
21:14Oh, man.
21:15Too much.
21:16Too, too, too much.
21:19I don't think I've ever felt like a world champion more than I did in- in that moment.
21:27Great WrestleMania, right?
21:32It's incredibly touching, and the gift-giving imbalance is now huge.
21:37So, I don't know what I can do, but I- I'm honored.
21:40You- you give every single night.
21:43You give everything you have every single night, and nobody could ask for anything more.
21:49Can we get a tissue for- for Cole?
21:51I'm having a mess over here, y'all.
21:54It's only fitting that Cody was able to bring that Rolex and the WWE Championship back to the very place that his wrestling dreams first took shape.
22:07How do you feel having this conversation, thinking about him? And, by the way, I'm sure he's here right now.
22:14We all right here getting fucking like a muggy tonight! Yes!
22:20There's not a bigger honor on the planet than the brief time you're the captain or you're the quarterback of world wrestling entertainment.
22:28An entrance befitting the quarterback of the team, Cody Rhodes!
22:34I get in my feelings a bit about hating the fact that he won't see it, but-
22:39He sees it.
22:41You said something to me at WrestleMania 39. You said, can you feel him?
22:44And this is gonna sound so crazy to so many people. At WrestleMania 39, I'm under the stage.
22:48And not only did I feel like I felt him, I felt like I felt his hand and I could smell him and I could-
22:55Just a whole sensory overload. And I got to WrestleMania 40 and I didn't feel him.
23:02And in my mind, it's because he knew I had it.
23:12And after a wonderful day, Cody had a special surprise for me.
23:17This is a gift from myself to you. Wow!
23:21Oh, I kind of made it cooler than my own. Yeah, no, and I did actually put a little inscription on there.
23:26Thank you very much for signing that.
23:28But you'll appreciate it down there at the end.
23:30Wrestling has more than one royal family.
23:33We're right here. We're together.
23:35This is very, very cool.
23:36Yeah, no, I-
23:37Very, very cool.
23:38I'm excited about this new endeavor and your new show. Thank you very much for having me on it.
23:42Thank you. Very much.
23:44What a perfect way to end my journey through Atlanta.
23:48Cody showed me why in wrestling there truly is more than one royal family.
23:56I think Liberty has perhaps a lot of Dusty in her.
24:01She does. I can tell in the pictures and videos you send me all the time.
24:05I say, I see your grandfather in you.
24:08She told me she saw Brandi with me at the entrance of WrestleMania 40.
24:13And even at three years old, she hit me with a line that let me know.
24:16She goes, yeah, but I want to be part of the entrance.
24:20I thought, oh, oh, no.
24:35Omaha!