Cody Rhodes on Reason Why John Cena Calls Matches Loudly In The Ring, His Belief It Didn’t Make Sense For Cena To Turn Heel During Retirement Tour,

A recent episode of the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast featured Cody Rhodes as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Rhodes’ thoughts about the reason why John Cena would call out spots loudly in the ring during his matches.

“John will not talk low or ‘in carny.’ John yells everything that is going to happen in the ring as loud as he can possibly yell it. He calls it, for the first four rows, an interactive experience. Screams it.

At SummerSlam, he’s about to slam me with the Attitude Adjustment from a table to another table. It’s highly dangerous; it’s going to hurt. We’re going to do it the safest way we can, but you can hear him yelling at me while I’m on his shoulders that he can’t see because my arm is over his eyes. I never spoke back to John, I never wanted to speak back, he’s a mentor to me, but it was one of those moments where I thought, ‘Buddy, I’m the one doing it. Just throw me.’”

Rhodes also gave his thoughts about John Cena’s heel turn at WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 and if there was excitement backstage before the big betrayal took place on the show. Rhodes also gave his thoughts about his belief that Cena’s heel turn didn’t make sense to do for his retirement tour.

“With John, the moment he hugs me and his face changes, he was so excited. I was more trepidatious in terms of, he had never done that, and it didn’t even make sense to do it at this point. He had never gone rogue or gone bad. I just didn’t want to screw that massive moment up.”

During the fifth episode of season three of the WWE: Unreal docuseries on Netflix, Rhodes gave his thoughts about Pat McAfee’s involvement in his storyline feud with Randy Orton for WrestleMania 42.

“Pat McAfee is a massive star. He has eyeballs on everything that he does. Should Pat McAfee be involved with Randy Orton going for his 15th championship? You think about things wrestling fans have gotten mad about in the past, this had the potential to be that. The crowd will say, ‘Hey, no, Pat should not be behind Randy Orton.’ It’s almost full blown sacrilege.

I never got on the side of being angry and frustrated. If we can’t take these ingredients and put them together and make something special, I don’t know if we’re worth the WrestleMania main event.”

Rhodes also gave his thoughts about how he enjoyed WrestleMania 42 more than any other WrestleMania event since he return to WWE in 2022.

“I probably enjoyed WrestleMania 42 more than I’ve enjoyed any WrestleMania since I’ve been back because I got tasked with, can you keep this on the tracks?”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3