Cody Rhodes talks Street Fighter movie, Orton’s Mania punt, WM 40, The Rock, and more

Cody Rhodes sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss playing Guile in the new Street Fighter movie, dressing up in costume complete with Guile’s hair at the movie’s premiere, signing his last WWE contract, how long he intends to wrestle for, reacting to Dan Soder and Will Sasso’s impressions of Dusty Rhodes, reflecting back on WrestleMania 40 and the idea of “peak wrestling”, calling out The Rock for a one-on-one match, his Mount Rushmore of films, and more!

I wasn’t sure today if you’d be dressed as Guile. You’ve been doing so much stuff as Guile. How do you decide if you’re going to be dressed as Guile or wearing a Cody Rhodes suit?

“This is going to sound crazy, and no, it won’t sound crazy. But Guile, when I do Guile, I want to respect the writers on the movie, because the writers did such an incredible job putting Street Fighter together and the character. I also want to respect Capcom in that I don’t ever want to catch myself creating dialog for Guile. I’m an actor on this beautiful piece of business right here, and I was honored to even don that flat top and be part of this. But I don’t want to add any context or equity because my hope is this becomes Street Fighter One turns into Street Fighter Two. Every one of us had a blast playing these characters, and I think we want them to grow. So I keep it very limited. A lot of grunts, a lot of thumbs up, a lot of Uncle Sam points, a salute occasionally.

But yeah, it’s limited, things that I do as Guile would be tough, because then your question about when are you not in character? Well, what are we doing? It’s one thing if you’re wearing a helmet or a mask because you can almost be you under it and explain it. Guile is such an iconic thing. This is a scary thing about this movie, and it was always going to be a scary thing. I can’t imagine how Callina [Liang] felt, or [Andrew] Koji, or Noah [Centineo]. These characters mean so much to people, and you see them and generational feelings, and cosplay and the fighting game community-they mean so much, man. We cannot do this wrong. Which is thank gosh we had Kitao [Sakurai] to direct this movie because it was about getting it accurate and Capcom being there as a partner. It’s a big amount of responsibility.”

WrestleMania 42. You take the punt from Randy. What was the actual injury?

“I think we skated by with a little bit of an orbital fracture, and that’s not on anyone’s fault but my own. It was bad. I think we skated by a little bit of an orbital fracture, and I think I am mad at myself for doing so because it’s affected my work since, super slowed down.”

Peripheral vision?

“Yeah, just to a degree, to a little bit, and I feel like that’s you can’t go out there QB 1 and saying you’re in your prime, and you’re the best you’ve ever been if you’re dealing with something that’s a bit of a hindrance like that, but at this point we’re out the woods. I got through it. I showed up the next night. I am toxic as can be when it comes to physical stuff. Toxic as can be. ‘I can go. Tape it up. I can go’.”

Like the pec muscle?

“I’m letting you know that’s not good. If you’re a young wrestler, don’t do it. Don’t! Live to fight another day. Something about me can’t not want to go. I don’t know what it is. I love it too much. Maybe it’s ego. I don’t know, but I just can’t not. Yeah, that was a nasty one.”

Maybe you haven’t made it public, but do you think about how much longer you want to do it?

“I just signed my last contract. I say last contract, but that’s going to go for a while, and if I’m able to do what I’ve been able to do, because I would love this year not to be just one movie, but perhaps two movies, and I’d love to kind of be able to share that at some point, get that going, and be in that. With all that said, my time with WWE could go. I mean, just to give you a real answer here, and not politic around you, probably seven years. Six, seven? I didn’t mean it like that, but yeah, you know that’s a kids’ thing, right? Had to have Carmelo Hayes explain to me what that was, and I still didn’t get it. Yeah, six, seven years. I’d say so. Yeah, and I don’t want to say that in a final sense. I just know that I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

AJ Styles made it clear when we talked he didn’t want to wrestle into his 50s. Do you have that kind of feeling?

“Well, I definitely don’t want to wrestle into my 50s. No shame to anyone who wrestles in their 50s. I don’t want to overstay my welcome in a sense of this, right? So, I have been given so much from wrestling, and you have to think about my career in its totality. The things that we don’t talk about, the things that I don’t get asked about anymore. You have to think about all that. I have shed so much of my skin for the industry, but I have also been given so, so, so much. I think there’s a point where you have to stop taking. I’m not there, but there’s a point, and I think that’s in that time frame, a point where you just have to stop taking. It’s giving me everything. I am talking to you today, the first time I talked to you, I was a mid-card talent at WWE, and no shame to anything in the mid-card. Mid-card’s beautiful. I heard Triple H explain mid-card in a way that changed my perception of it forever. But I was a mid-card talent with a ceiling that was right above my head, and I’m talking to you today as someone who got to play Guile from Street Fighter, created by Capcom, a game that I played growing up as a little kid. Again, be careful what you wish for, but also I don’t know how many moments like this I can take, and I can get hopefully more, hopefully a lot more. But I’ve been so lucky so far and so blessed so far that I think wrestling, I mean, Cody fatigue is already pretty set in.”

You feel that?

“Well, no, maybe. But I think you can only go so far, and you’re only supposed to go so far.”

You previously called out The Rock for a one-on-one match. Were you going to have a one-on-one match with The Rock?

“Oof. It’s not that I’m evading that answer. It’s that I don’t really know how to answer because I think personally he has a couple of matches probably left to do. I think that personally, but I also know looking at WrestleMania 40 and another guy who he’s given all, continues to give all as part of the board. He could easily say that was a great final piece as a performer in a wrestling ring. That’ll be up to him. That’ll certainly be up to him if there’s more and what those matches might be. I don’t think any wrestler would ever look you in the eye and tell you they wouldn’t want a match like that.”