Cody Rhodes: If my dad were still alive, Solo Sikoa would have been his guy
If Dusty Rhodes were still alive today, his son Cody believes he would have been a huge fan of Solo Sikoa.
A new episode of Cody’s “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” podcast debuted on Wednesday with Rey Mysterio appearing as the guest. During their conversation, they discussed how Dusty always spoke highly of Mysterio on commentary in WCW. Cody said that, as an old-school wrestling booker, Dusty would quickly become attached to wrestlers he saw something in. He thinks that same thing would have happened if Dusty were still around to watch Sikoa.
“I think classic wrestling booker, producer 101 sometimes is going, ‘That’s my guy. That’s my girl. There’s something about them.’ You saw something they did one night or two nights and whatever maybe and that’s my guy,” Cody said. “That’s what it was. It was, ‘That’s my guy.’ A couple matches in with Dean [Malenko], whatever, that’s my guy.
“And I wanted to bring this up because there’s someone today that I was watching, and I can’t believe I’m going to say it because I don’t have a great, like, interaction with him. But there was a guy I was watching and I shared it with one other legend backstage the other day because I thought if my dad was still alive, that’d be his guy. And it was Solo Sikoa.
“And I couldn’t figure it out. I’m like, he would just eat him up. Just something about exactly what you just said. Go out there and take what I have, but also we’re going to have a good time. We’re going to have a good time. Like, there’s pressure. You know when you get to those points when there’s pressure and it’s almost like that’s all there is. Well, this is just all pressure. And then there’s also, we’re going to have a good time.”
Sikoa, the son of WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi and younger brother of The Usos, is a former United States Champion and now holds the WWE Tag Team titles with Tama Tonga. He has not held his first World Championship yet but did work a WWE title program against Cody Rhodes in 2024.
Before passing away in 2015, Dusty Rhodes worked behind the scenes in NXT and helped shape the careers of some of WWE’s modern stars. He was especially important to Becky Lynch and would help pick her up whenever she felt discouraged.
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.