One of the highly awaited professional wrestling events; WrestleMania XL will take place on April 6th and 7th 2024 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. WrestleMania 40 is going to be the first WrestleMania event to be held under the TKO banner and with WWE, not under the McMahon family. Triple H has confirmed that the main event of WrestleMania XL is indeed going to be Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns.
Cody Rhodes returned to WWE at WrestleMania 38 in 2022 and announced that he desires to ‘finish the story’ by winning the WWE Championship. At the same event, Roman Reigns became the undisputed WWE Universal Champion and managed to retain the title and win the WWE Championship. Now, ahead of the highly anticipated match between Rhodes and Reigns, WWE veteran Nic Nemeth (Dolph Ziggler) shared his thoughts on the same.
Nic Nemeth mocks Cody Rhodes’ ‘story’ ahead of WrestleMania XL
Former WWE wrestler and stand-up comedian Nic Nemeth also known as Dolph Ziggler was recently announced to be joining the team of Busted Open Radio and on March 15th appeared as the host of the episode where he spoke to Dave LaGreca. The two of them discussed Cody Rhodes’ story ahead of WrestleMania 40th.
Cody Rhodes had declared that that he desired to finish the story which meant that he would try his hardest to win the WWE Championship, a title his father, Dusty Rhodes couldn’t win. LaGreca has been one of the major advocates for Rhodes, who did not settle right with Nemeth, and he said:
“I appreciate this two-year story, I really do, I just think it’s so funny that finishing the story isn’t like the end of the storyline, it’s like, ‘No, he has to win cause his dad wasn’t champion’. That’s the story?”
LaGreca clarified that for Rhodes, finishing the story isn’t just about winning the title because his father didn’t win it but he also had his journey to get to WrestleMania XL. Nemeth chimed in to mention that everybody who wasn’t a legacy in the business had to go through a bunch of stuff too just like Rhodes.
Dusty Rhodes who was known as The American Dream was a three-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, United States Heavyweight Champion, and multi-time World Television, World Tag Team, and World Six-Man Tag Team Champion. Despite being one of the star wrestlers, he didn’t win WWE Championship which is what his son desires to win for him.
Nemeth went ahead to ask LaGreca if he believed that Rhodes entered the world of wrestling and reached heights on his own merits to which he said ‘yes’ but then a silence followed. The silence made LaGreca laugh.
Cody Rhodes reveals the one who came up with ‘finish the story’
The professional wrestler had appeared on Busted Open Radio earlier this year where he went on to discuss his famous tagline, ‘Finish the story’. Rhodes went on to reveal that there is an ongoing debate on who came up with the tagline, which is how the audience recognizes him now. He said via TJR Wrestling,
“So, I said ‘finish the story’ in a promo before the Royal Rumble and it was my weight belt last year. But Michael Cole is the first person I think who said it on broadcast. So I feel like it’s Michael Cole. ‘Finish the story’ might be a Michael Cole thing because at some point, we’re gonna start looking for who came up with this.”
Rhodes continued to explain that he spoke to Triple H about it noting that when he said the game was using ‘finish the story’ as a theme, he saw Hulk Hogan talking about his story, Undertaker talking about his story, Steve Austin talking about his story. He added that he felt like he had done something as his ‘finish the story’ tagline spread like wildfire just like Bullet Club is Fine did.
Dave Meltzer in Wrestling Observer Newsletter via Wrestling INC, shared that there is a promotional video that is being planned which will be played with the idea of Rhodes being tied to the city of Philadelphia ahead of WrestleMania 40. The reason is that the city knows what the American Dream and American Nightmare look like adding that the planned video is going to make Rhodes look like an underdog figure.
The newsletter suggested that Cody Rhodes will be portrayed as a ‘Rocky-type’ figure as they are hopeful that just like Rocky, Cody Rhodes will be able to finish his story against all odds. However, after Dwayne Johnson joined The Bloodline, he vowed that he would do whatever it took for Rhodes to not be able to finish his story.
WrestleMania XL will stream live on WWE Network and Peacock.
