The winners of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Tournament in NXT will be presented with the trophy by Cody Rhodes & Dustin Rhodes (a.k.a Goldust) at NXT Takeover: Respect. It should be noted that Cody won’t be appearing under his Stardust gimmick.
Cody Rhodes will return to WWE programming as himself after a year & a half. Below is what he told Triblive.com:
“It’s great though that you ask, because the Dusty Rhodes tag tournament taking place in NXT is something he would really be proud of because of all the platforms it gives to talent, including independent talent that came in for a shot to win the Dusty Rhodes tag tournament. I will actually be there myself, (as) me — for the first time a while on WWE programming — Cody Rhodes and my brother will be there to present the trophy, which I’m looking forward to seeing.”
Cody also talked about not returning as “Cody Rhodes” on WWE TV after the passing of Dusty Rhodes & what Dusty told him about how he wanted to be remembered after he was no more:
“It would have been tacky — would have been tacky, and it wouldn’t have been genuine. Many years ago, I used to watch RAW with my dad, and we watched Nitro, and we watched the pay-per-views. Many years ago, there was a wrestler who passed away, and his name was used pretty regularly after that on programming. People were using it to try draw the adulation of fans.
Everyone was saying, “Oh, well such and such who passed away would have loved this.” And (my father) told me, and this is something very few people know, “When I go don’t ever let anybody say that about me. I left my body of work on the table already and it doesn’t need to be expanded.” And I never forgot that. So there was never any question on who was coming back.”
Are you a die hard Attitude Era fan? Take the special edition of our exclusive “Old School Wrestling Quiz: Attitude Era Special (1997-1999)” below:
