Arn Anderson On Cody’s Time As Stardust: Why Change Cody If There Were No Plans To Elevate Him?

Arn Anderson says that Cody Rhodes did the best he could with the Stardust character, but even he didn’t understand how much Cody disliked the gimmick until much later.

These days, Arn Anderson is the head coach of Cody Rhodes and the Nightmare Family. However, when he was a producer in WWE, he saw Cody transform into Stardust and do the best with what he was given.

Speaking on his podcast, Arn said that he was initially a fan of the gimmick but WWE just had no intention of raising Cody to another level. Arn would also say that he was surprised to learn later on just how much Cody dislikes the character.

“Every time I dealt with Cody from day one, he would give you the best he could. I knew that there were or there should be some good things happening for him in the business because his attitude was good. His ability was good straight away,” Arn said. “[When] they put this character on him, I didn’t know how strongly he was against it until later.”

He continued, “I thought he did a good job with it and he looked good in the costume and the whole deal. But there was no plan past that to take Cody Rhodes, who everyone knew was the son of Dusty Rhodes, and take that character and it didn’t have to do anything with Goldust or anything to do with ‘The American Dream,’ but somehow elevate that character. But when they change you and change your characters and you just stay at a level push, you don’t go anywhere with that. Then what was the reason to change? If there were no positive plans, you know, to elevate you and that was what I couldn’t figure out.”

Arn Anderson will lead Cody into battle against Lance Archer to determine the inaugural AEW TNT champion at AEW Double Or Nothing on Saturday, May 22, 2020.

If you use any of the above quotes, please credit Fightful for the transcription by linking back to this article.