Summary

Cody Rhodes said he feels honored by mixed crowd reactions and sees strong responses from both supporters and critics as a sign of fan passion.

He said he now has thick skin from his time in wrestling and wants to avoid being emotionally thrown off by either side.

Rhodes also said he does not want to ignore fans who boo him, but does not want to lose focus on fans who already support him.

Cody Rhodes reaction strategy shapes his current WWE champion presentation

Cody Rhodes openly embracing polarizing reactions creates a concrete consequence, his presentation can continue as a top champion without forcing a major character reset to chase universal cheers.

By focusing on both sides of the audience instead of only trying to win over detractors, Rhodes sets a clear lane for how he plans to handle crowd dynamics going forward.

Quotes

Quote from Cody Rhodes

"I’m honored by it. I’m honored by the passion of both sides of the coin. What I would like to do and to honor those who are so excited and those who are so not, however you’d put it, is I want to make sure that I’m not gotten to by it. I think with everything I’ve been through and everything in the business, you hear people say you got thick skin. I can definitely say I have thick skin now, because I used to not have thick skin."

Cody Rhodes later went on to say:

"I don’t want to say no, but there’s a really great line, you watch Rick and Morty? What does he say? He says something about, ‘I don’t care that you boo me, because I’ve seen what you cheer,’ and that is very much my approach often. I spoke about this recently with the big dude from Barstool, Brandon [Walker]. I spoke about that Leslie Knope Parks and Rec episode about bowling, where she spent so much time on the guy who was never going to vote for it in the first place. Unfortunately, you do that to discount your own, the people who are already there for you, but I don’t want to be against them either, if that makes any sense. I think John had it perfect, and watching John, having my own skin really, really beat up and thickened up over the course of my career has made it so that I think I’ve got the lane I can run in and make something very entertaining for both sides of the coin."

Sources

As reported by NoDQ.