No Rhodes has ever become a world champion for over three decades. Cody Rhodes, the son of pro-wrestling legend Dusty Rhodes, has a chance to pull it off not once but twice starting next week. The Bullet Club member is slated for two world title matches for New Japan Wrestling and Ring of Honor respectively with only eight days separating the two events.
Story Details:
First, ‘The American Nightmare’ will challenge Christopher Daniels for the Ring of Honor championship in the main event of the Best in the World 2017 on June 23 at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium.
Then, Rhodes is scheduled to take on Japan’s wrestling top-gun Kazuchika Okada for the prestigious IWGP World Heavyweight championship at NJPW’s G1 Special in Long Beach, California on July 1.
What does this mean for Cody Rhodes?
Denied of a major world title push in WWE, Rhodes will have two chances of ending the 31-year curse on the Rhodes family as no one from the prestigious wrestling family was able to hold a world title in any pro-wrestling promotions for that long. The last time a Rhodes was a world champion was when Cody’s father Dusty Rhodes captured the NWA World Heavyweight title at the Great American Bash in 1986.
As for Cody, a victory over Daniels, and even more against Okada, would easily be the biggest moments in his wrestling career after his character fell out of love in WWE.
Former WWE commentator Jim Ross believes the Okada match is easily the biggest match in Cody Rhodes’s career because it will serve as a gauging stick to where his repackaged character is at right now since leaving WWE.
Prepare yourselves...this happens...8 days apart.
— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) June 12, 2017
CAN YOU IMAGINE?
6/23-Lowell, MA 7/1-Long Beach, CA pic.twitter.com/4YKU2q5RJj
“Cody needs this match.
He needs to show everybody where he is since leaving WWE because I believe eventually he will make a triumphant return to WWE as a much better performer and business man than he was when he left, and he will make a major impact,” Ross said in an interview on Busted Open Radio.
Double champion or double whammy?
It’s a tall order for Cody to expect he’s going to end Daniels’ first reign as ROH champion but it’s not out of the realm of reality.
Then, there’s the impossible. Kazuchika Okada will not lose the IWGP championship to Rhodes in NJPW’s latest venture on American soil. NJPW’s higher power has been booking Okada like some sort of a God. He’s untouchable, and even a hot commodity like Kenny Omega can’t get a win against Japan’s wrestling ‘golden boy.’
And honestly, the way the Okada vs. Omega NJPW Demolition rematch ended makes it really tough to book a Cody Rhodes win. There’s a reason why Okada-Omega part 2 ended in a draw. It begs continuation, a trilogy perhaps. Where will it happen? Maybe, at next year’s Wrestlekingdom.