It was just about a year ago that Cody Rhodes found
himself storyline-fired by the then-newly formed Authority. In Cody’s absence
his brother Goldust returned to WWE screens in an effort to win his bro’s job
back. He failed. Then Cody, after enjoying a real life honeymoon, showed back
up and the brothers won themselves WWE contracts, and the tag team titles, in
spirited matches against The Shield.
At the time it felt like a big deal for the brothers,
particularly Cody. He’d turned babyface earlier in the year during an entertaining
and expertly booked Money in the Bank match in which he was betrayed by
so-called best friend and current Miz stunt double Damien Sandow. He seemed to
be on the rise. An affable, talented guy that was finally getting his crack at
progression.
The tag outings alongside Goldust were great. Everyone
enjoyed them. Cody was praised for his work as a babyface after years of being
the bad guy while Goldy was clearly having a career resurgence, doing some of
the best work of his twenty-three year career. Alongside The Shield combo of
Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns they made tag team wrestling in WWE something to
look forward to seeing. After years of the likes of Cryme Time that was quite
the feat.
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| 'Look, there goes your singles push!' |
And this wasn’t the first time Cody Rhodes had been doing
solid work when handed the opportunity. The year before he’d made the best of
an incredibly bad situation by making his Intercontinental title feud with Big
Show not entirely atrocious. The year before that he provided Rey Mysterio with
his final noteworthy WWE feud. By the end of 2013 it was clear Cody Rhodes was
a man who could and would make the most of any opportunity handed to him and
that audiences would invest in him emotionally.
When 2014 began and the Rhodes brothers dropped the tag
titles to the New Age Outlaws it felt like a split was being prepared. That
turned out not to be the case, which was a pleasant surprise. It seemed that
WWE understood what they had in the genuinely popular combo of Cody Rhodes and
Goldust and that they were going to keep them both affiliated. My assumption
was that they would either go through a peaceful split or that they’d remain
affiliated but work more singles outings in order to prepare Cody for a bigger role.
Instead they remained together and stagnated. They
started being booked as an afterthought and people, naturally enough, lost
interest in them. If viewers aren’t given a reason to care about a performer or
a tag team then they probably won’t.
This stagnation led to WWE turning Cody Rhodes into
Stardust, basically another Goldust character, in what we can only assume was a
half-hearted attempt at freshening them up. That not only neutered ‘The
Bizarre’s One’s’ appeal, that he was an oddball unique on the WWE roster, but
also harmed Cody’s already damaged image as a man ready to break out as a
singles star. Becoming a clone of an overly familiar character his brother had
played to near enough perfection for a little under two decades did nothing for
him. It was a regression.
So what we have now is Cody Rhodes and Goldust dressing
and acting the same, taking away an aspect of their pairing that was originally
enjoyable (Cody being nonplussed by his brother’s peculiarity) and being bad
guys for no reason. Well, no reason beyond the creative team not knowing what
else to do with them. They were far more effective as good guys, as
demonstrated by their popularity when given things to do last autumn and at the
start of this year. Cody’s prospects as a singles star were far greater as a good
guy too.
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