Back in 2013, WrestleMania 29 was supposed to be a big night for Cody Rhodes. He was set to wrestle in an eight-person mixed tag match—him and Damien Sandow with The Bella Twins against Brodus Clay, Tensai, and The Funkadactyls. The match had been built up on TV for weeks.But it never happened.
Right before they were supposed to go out, in the Gorilla position, Vince McMahon told them the match was cut because of time. The Undertaker vs. CM Punk match ran long, and there was also a live performance by P. Diddy that took up extra minutes. Something had to go, and it was Cody’s match.
Cody was crushed. On The Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast, he said his reaction was one of the worst – he wanted to fight someone. He ended up sitting under the stage in full gear, just feeling destroyed. He didn’t blame Undertaker or Punk (he even joked it was P. Diddy’s fault), but the disappointment hit hard.
Undertaker felt bad too. He saw Cody in passing afterward and could tell how upset he was. Years later on the podcast, Undertaker said he still felt horrible about it.
There’s also a theory that the match was always going to get cut to film an angle for Total Divas. Cody asked Nikki Bella about it, and she swears she didn’t know ahead of time. But Cody thinks it might have been planned that way to create drama for the show. Either way, no one gave him a heads-up.
The match got moved to RAW the next night, but it was rushed and over in like two minutes. It didn’t feel the same. Looking back, Cody said that moment was tough, but he needed it. It pushed him to leave WWE later, try new things, and eventually come back stronger.
Even now, though, he said the sting from that night never fully went away. One small full-circle thing: WrestleMania 29 was at MetLife Stadium – the same place where he had his huge SummerSlam 2025 match with John Cena, where he beat Cena to win the Undisputed WWE Championship for the second time.
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