Cody Rhodes: Popularity of The Bloodline made it ‘very hard’ to get attention outside of WWE
When The Bloodline saga was gaining steam, Cody Rhodes felt like it was difficult to “turn heads” with the work he was doing outside of WWE.
Rhodes was with AEW when The Bloodline story began but later became part of the saga himself, dethroning Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 40 in 2024. Rhodes also had a brief Tag Team title reign with Jey Uso — and those two linked back up on this week’s episode of Rhodes’ “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” podcast.
During their conversation, Rhodes credited The Bloodline for being a “massive” part of WWE’s recent business boom, comparing it to some of the biggest storylines in wrestling history. The popularity of what was going on with The Bloodline made it difficult to get fans to pay attention to anything else.
“I was away trying to turn heads with what I was doing, and it’s very hard to do that when the Tribal Chief is becoming a thing, when the Ula Fala is becoming a thing, all of that,” Rhodes said.
Uso noted that, when the story started, they didn’t know how big it was going to become. Whenever it felt like things were maybe getting stale, a new element like Sami Zayn’s involvement would be added to reinvigorate things. Uso feels one big factor in their popularity was Roman Reigns trash-talking during matches, and it was important to keep that going when audiences returned after the pandemic era.
“Him talking, like, just elevated the product more, I think,” Uso said. “And when the people got back, I felt like we have to keep some of that style. And also for the live people, we gotta go too. I think that’s what made the WWE style today — and you know what they say today? It was like cinema, right? That’s all they kept calling us: ‘cinema, cinema, cinema, cinema.’ And I didn’t even know, we were just cooking every week.”
As for the future of The Bloodline, Uso said he believes there is still more story to be told whenever things pick back up.
“It’s still alive,” Uso said. “I don’t think it’s dead.”
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.