Cody Rhodes on Moves vs. Storytelling Importance Debate in Wrestling & Why Both are Essential Components To Making Pro Wrestling Work

A recent episode of the What Do You Wanna Talk About? with Cody Rhodes podcast featured Matt Cardona as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Rhodes’ thoughts about the long-term on-gong debate about whether it’s more important to have great stories or highly rated matches and his belief that both are essential components to making pro wrestling work.

“There’s such an argument online about, ‘Oh, the spots. Oh, the storytelling. Cinema versus’ — and I don’t think people realize, it’s both. And when it’s everything, it works

And here’s the story. I remember there was a tag match that followed me one time. I had wrestled Ethan Page, and I thought we did a great job. And we had a crowd that was already a little contentious, and I was getting boos, things were happening. But I knew we killed it. But then there was a match that followed us, and six people on X liked it. It was indulgent, there was no story to it. They worked super hard, it wasn’t a matter of [them] not working.”

Rhodes also gave his thoughts about how he enjoys watching death match wrestling in response to a discussion he had with Cardona about Cardona’s death match against Nick Gage for Game Changer Wrestling in 2021.

“If you’re going to do the death match, as we’re talking about here, and we don’t have to circle this forever, if there’s not a story, then it’s just indulgent. And that’s why I kind of have liked the ones that I’ve seen [because there’s been a story].”

Rhodes also gave his thoughts about how he believes that developing a connection with the audience is one of the most important things a wrestler can do in 2026.

“There’s a connection to it. And I feel like that’s something that has been very hard to say. You know how everything is so polarizing now, you’re either on one side of the fence. It’s crazy when you sit in the middle.

Like, Je’Von [Evans] right now has got a reinventive style. But getting to know Je’Von makes you even more excited about the reinventive style. Getting to know Je’Von gets you more excited about the dumb thing he’s going to do. Because now you have a hope that, ‘I hope he hits it. Oh man.’

You know, versus indulgence and just doing it for the sake of doing it. I feel very on a high horse over all this and I’m not trying to be, but you know, because the old-time guys are like, ‘Well, it’s not about the five stars.’ They make it so contentious right out of the gate. It’s not. It’s everything, if that makes any sense.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com