Cody Rhodes failed to finish the story at WrestleMania 39, losing to Roman Reigns in the main event.
Since returning to WWE at WrestleMania 38, Rhodes stated his goal was to win the WWE Championship, doing what his father never did. Reigns put an end to that goal when he pinned Cody to close WrestleMania 39.
Speaking at the post-show press conference, Triple H commented on the bout between Cody and Roman.
"Maybe for a lot of people, a shocking outcome. What I will say about that is, it's always interesting to me when people say, 'how can that happen?' or 'how can they do that in that moment?' It's almost perfectly spelling out in this story. 'I need to finish the story.' In the WWE, the story never finishes. Tomorrow night on Raw, the story continues. The story takes another chapter. We just got to the end of the chapter. The story continues and that's where this gets interesting to me. That is what is the most amazing thing about our business, the story never ends," said Triple H.
Triple H continued, praising Cody as a performer.
"For Cody, so proud of him as a performer. The hardest thing in the world is to walk away from your comfort zone. No matter how difficult that environment that you're in is or anything, to go with what you're familiar with and walk away to an unknown environment is one of the most difficult things you'll ever do in your life. He did that and gambled on himself in the biggest way possible, and succeeded at it. That wasn't his goal. He knew when the time was right, all the things he was doing, all the gambling, all the moments he was creating was to get back to what he really wanted, which was to be here and be the WWE Champion and fulfill what he feels is his legacy and his career and birth right to some degree, to do what his dad didn't. All those things. To see that journey and see him go through all those things is incredibly strong and an incredibly tough journey to do that. To do that in this business is really difficult and he's done it and tonight, if anything, he proved and earned his place at the top of this business," he said.
Triple H then credited Roman by saying, "Roman, I tell him all the time and I told him tonight, he's operating on a different level from everybody else. The storyline, the nuances, making everything mean something. There is nothing that happens when he's in that ring that doesn't mean something. It's impressive and why he's been champion for 945 days, why he's at the top of the industry. He's at a whole other level and stratosphere from anybody doing this. He's begging somebody to come along and take it from him. He's begging them to step up and do what he does. That's what this business is about. When the Hogans and those people get to the top and the time comes, you need that next level. You need the Brets, Shawns, Rocks, Austins, Undertakers, Cenas, somebody to step up and take it. Not have it handed to them. Take it. He's begging for somebody to do it. I can't wait to see who does."
While taking questions from the media, Triple H was asked about passing up on the opportunity to create a moment with Cody winning to potentially "drag out" Roman's story.
Triple H replied, "To drag things out sounds negative. It's not drag things out. It's telling a story. Where do you want to go with the story and how do you want to get there? In the moment, you think, 'Oh my God, I can't believe.' If you're watching a movie and you thought every scene in the movie was the last scene in the movie, 'I can't believe they did that, worst movie ever.' Oh wait, there's more. How much do we weigh that out? Every single moment of every single day. Some days when I'm trying to sleep and I can't sleep, it's because I'm weighing that out in my brain and I wish that I could sleep. It's all you think about and it consumes your every moment of everything you do. You feel it. Sometimes your feeling is wrong and sometimes your feeling is right. I do know that it always continues and the story doesn't end here. Some people will look at it and say, 'if you did this, it would have been better.' You don't know that, do you? You're never going to know because if you did the other thing, it might not have worked out the way you wanted to. People might not have reacted the way you wanted to. It's always feel and where you are at that moment, honestly, it's the right place to be and that's where you have to be and bank on what's next. If you continue to tell the story and if I didn't feel like we had a compelling story on the other side, it wouldn't be the decision."
Let it play out.
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