Inside Pulse Wrestling | The Martyrshow: On John Cena’s Title Reigns, Cody Rhodes’ IC Title Run and WWE Smackdown

The Martyrshow: On John Cena’s Title Reigns, Cody Rhodes’ IC Title Run and WWE Smackdown

by Martin Shaw on February 13, 2012

People often like to say that the belts are worthless in modern-day “sports entertainment” & they’ll cite things like Cena’s 10 reigns as WWE Champion in order to back their viewpoint up. It’s kind of hard to argue with that kind of logic when you think about how long it took Ric Flair to rack up his 16 (or thereabouts, depending on who’s book you go by) runs as World Champion. HHH has been going for less than half of Flair’s career & has managed to rack up 13 runs with whatever they decided was the big belt at the time, it’s safe to say he booked himself into a bunch of them, but Hunter is about half way between Flair and Cena in terms of worthy runs.

Right now CM Punk has been WWE Champion for just over 4 months & everyone under the sun seems to be praising him, so i’m gonna focus on someone else…

At the time of writing, Cody Rhodes has held the Intercontinental Championship for 6 full months.

Does Cody even deserve a run with the IC title? I’d say that’s debatable.

If we look at the WWE roster, who hasn’t had a belt yet? It doesn’t take Hulk Hogan to tell you that a lot of the guys they have under contract aren’t ready yet (brother!). Most of the guys they gave a belt to early just kind of stumbled slowly & worked their way down the card.

If we look at some classic IC Champions that went on to bigger things, guys like Austin, The Rock, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Randy Savage, Warrior… Cody’s name doesn’t exactly fit in.

Some big names who made it no further than the IC title include Honky Tonk Man, Steamboat, Piper, Razor Ramon & Goldust. Goldust? maybe I’m getting warmer here…

Vince & Duthty didn’t exactly get along in the 90′s, so his son Dustin was stuck with a transvestite gimmick that nobody really thought would run for 10+ years. As stupid as it was at the time, it was still a gimmick. The wig, the gold suit, the OTT commentary Vince would give whenever “this thing” walked down the ramp… Cody, on the other hand, didn’t even get a set of kneepads until he’d been with the company for 4 years.

Cody had a plastic mask thing & it didn’t really work out, maybe they should’ve had him fight Rey in a mask v mask match to end that feud. He had a weird sort of Patrick Bateman thing going on in his promos as well, but it’s not ’93 so it’s kinda hard to push someone as a heel on the grounds that they take care of their skin & aren’t all that attracted to ugly people.

“What’s your fucking point?”

This 6 months reign has done more for Cody in terms of establishing him & solidifying his place on the card than 4 years of paper bags, promos that look like Gillette adverts, repeatedly being told he’s related to The American Dream & whatever it was he was doing buggering about with Bob Holly.

Character

Nothing at all really, we know he’s kind of an arrogant bad guy & he’s sort of narcissistic. WWE seems to think that 1 attribute will cut it these days (Truth is crazy, Punk likes to moan, Cena is stoic, Orton kicks people in the head, Big Show is big, Fella is white, Swagger is, uh, American…) & this lanky mother fucker somehow ended up with two things going for him? He must’ve impressed someone backstage (other than his father & brother, obviously).

In-ring ability

He’s not botching left, right & centre, so he’s at least above Sin Cara, Morrison (RIP), etc. He’s not hurting anyone, unlike Orton (who had Cody drowning in his own blood after that thing with the ring bell) Miz & a whole bunch of the divas (NOTE TO SELF: Do not piss off Alicia Fox). He doesn’t have a terrible or limited move set (i’m not gonna surprise anyone by saying the guys in 30 min long matches do about half of the moves that the under-card does in less than a third of that time). His finisher is, well, it’s a bit rubbish & kind of looks like he’s hurting himself rather than the opponent.

Total

I’d say he’s just above average.

“You took a whole article to tell us that Cody is just “average”?”

What i’m talking about here is the power of good booking. Cody might be average in the ring, but he’s been booked to look reasonably good due to high profile feuds with the likes of Orton &, obviously, that 6 month long title reign.

Good booking will get a guy far these days, look at Mark Henry. He was booked to look like a monster & that resulted in the best run of his 15 year stint with the company. Bryan’s heel turn has been reasonably well booked & Orton v Barrett makes a lot of sense too (unless that match on last week’s Smackdown has killed the angle). Smackdown is often thought of as “the B show”, but their booking over the last six months has been a lot stronger (and far more logical) than what they have on RAW.

Think i’m a moron/genius? Let me know in the comments. Only those two choices though, you writing a comment about me being average is like me writing an article about Cody- oh, fuck!

Wondering who I am? Check out CB’s interview with me from last year.

Tags: alicia fox, cm punk, Cody Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, Dusty Rhodes, goldust, Hulk Hogan, Intercontinental Championship, john cena, Mark Henry, martyrshow, randy orton, Ric Flair, sheamus, Smackdown, WWE

Martin Shaw

view profile »

Martin is a mediocre blogger who somehow managed to blag his way onto the Pulse Wrestling team. He goes by the names KON in the comments section & martyrshow on the twittors.

Follow on Twitter · Email Martin Shaw

Recent Posts »

Zork

Unlike a lot of people here who thinks Cody is ready for a World Title run, I disagree. I mean…if you’re talking about World Title runs like The Miz, Del Rio and Sheamus then sure, he could do that. But for some reason I don’t think that’s what they mean.

I like Cody, I think he’s pretty solid and he’s got a lot of things going for him right now but I believe he needs a little more seasoning so to speak. He could have a better finisher imo, instead of the current version of Cross-Rhodes he could just do a Rolling Cutter instead, like Test used to do for a few years. You could still pull that move off on anyone and it looks good.

I also think Cody has yet to have been in a good feud, he had something going with Rey but that ended. Rey helped him to get noticed but he needs another feud soon. Since Rey, Cody’s just been stewing and doing much of nothing until Orton busted him open and he changed his gimmick again. He had that mini feud with Booker but that didn’t amount to anything. I still think if proposed match with Goldust goes through that could be pretty cool.
Dave Dubya

Why did the title change from the concise by compelling “It’s Only Smoke and Mirrors” to that nonsense? Is it more weak sub-editing at Inside Pulse again?
http://martyrshow.com/ KON

It’s to do with search engines & whatnot. I guess not a lot of people google the lyrics to Cody’s theme.
Newbury

Yeah there’s not even three wrestler names in this clusterfuck of a title.
http://twitter.com/Jorge__Coelho Jorge Coelho

I like Cody but i think the problem with him is that he’s not intimidating and the fans aren’t buying him as a threat even with successful feuds against Rey or Booker T. But they’re booking him slowly but surely, so maybe someday he can be a solid Upper Midcarder/Main Eventer.
http://martyrshow.com/ KON

I don’t think Goldust V Cody would be that much of a draw, to be honest. Maybe if they had done it when Cody first started & sold it like he was having to prove himself to Dustin, but now?

I do think Cody should start using the Shattered Dreams in some of his matches & talk about narrowing the gene pool, so maybe they could show Goldust backstage watching this on a monitor & being like “motherfucker stole my spot, my finisher, my father’s love…”
James A

You think that Cody vs Goldust would have been MORE of a draw when Cody was a green-as-grass rookie and Goldust was jobbing on ECW???

Cody vs ‘Dust will never be a draw per se… at least not in the same way as Taker vs Triple H or Cena vs Rock – and I don’t think that anybody would ever expect it to be. People aren’t hoping for the match because they think it’ll boost buyrates or anything. What the match could be, however, is one of those things we don’t see enough of in pro wrestling – a midcard special attraction. It’ll be a great novelty match between two talented men with a built-in, ready-made story. Stuff like that may not convince people to part with their cash in the first place, but it WILL provide guaranteed value for money once they have.

If there’s one thing that ‘Mania has lacked in recent years, it’s a sense of legitimacy in the midcard. Cody vs Dust would go a long way towards convincing viewers that every match on the card counts for something – not just the main events.
http://martyrshow.com/ KON

I think it would’ve been a great way of establishing him, yeah.
It would’ve given Goldust something other than dark matches & ECW jobs as well.

Right now Cody has held the IC Title for 6 months & Goldust has been out of the ring for about a year, so wouldn’t it be more of a push for Dustin?

I guess they could play it like he’s jealous of his younger brother’s success, but that doesn’t quite work with Cody’s position on the roster right now.
James A

I see your point, I think it’s in Goldust’s favour that he hasn’t been seen in months: it means that he hasn’t been stuck in a jobber-to-the-stars rut which would make it difficult for the fans to care. If and when he comes back, he’s now free to be re-established as a returning Attitude Era hero. It’s a minor push for Dust, yes, but only so that Cody can earn a meaningful win at ‘Mania. Cody would be the main beneficiary in this scenario.

I can’t see Goldust coming back as a jealous tweener, either. If his Twitter is any indication (who knows?) Dust wants to play the story as his character’s curtain-call, with the old guy looking to prove that “he can go” one more time against an impetuous but talented youngster. That’s prime babyface territory, there. I can’t think of a way to book the feud which would make more sense, really.

It’s a tried-and-tested story, and Cody could well come out of it looking like a deeper, more interesting character as a result. Dustin, on the other hand, gets to walk into the sunset (and a nice backstage job) with his head held high. Everyone’s a winner.