Nightmare vs. Natural: A Fight For Legacy

Cody Rhodes faces one of the most important days of his professional life on May 25th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. His new company All Elite Wrestling will be putting on its first major show after months of planning, build up, secrecy and hype. The livelihood and careers of several hundred men and women are perched on the shoulders of Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks and Cody. Until this moment, there has been unbridled enthusiasm and excitement. Surely, four of the best talents in the world of professional wrestling can run a show and run a company.

Surprisingly enough, that is not what will be on the forefront of Cody’s mind entering Double Or Nothing. While the other three founding members have matches, some settling old scores and some settling new, none of them are reigniting a rivalry that goes back quite as far as his.

Cody will be facing a man who is 17 years his senior and has been one of the most bizarre and beloved characters in all of wrestling – the man formerly known as Goldust, his brother, Dustin Rhodes.

Dustin and Cody have operated at arm’s length for the entirety of their professional and personal lives. When they were in the same company working on the same show, they were rarely seen on television together, only teaming a handful of times and facing off against each other only once. They were never close and have made no attempts to indicate otherwise.

In a recent promo uploaded to Cody’s Nightmare Family YouTube Channel, Cody states that the match isn’t brother versus brother, but generation versus generation.

So, why start with Dustin? Why start with his own flesh and blood? His big brother, the Goldust to his Stardust? Why not go after an X-Pac or Sting, arguably bigger names from the era?

He feels he needs to send a message. To declare loud and clear that their time is done, and if you do not want to fall in line and step aside to allow the new world to come to light, you will be put down. No matter who you are or were.

Cody has spent his entire career finding a space in wrestling for guys like him – cruiserweights with heavyweight egos and mentality, with dreams too big for the old way of doing things. He sees those who want to keep the status quo as in his way, as dead weight, cancerous cells that must be cut away and destroyed.

That lends itself to the question, then why would Dustin agree to this? Why would he step into the ring with anyone, let alone his family, and offer himself up as a sacrificial lamb? The blood that will build the legacy of AEW? Is his freedom from the McMahon machine worth so much that he’s willing to put his career on the line for the opportunity to be seen on a major stage again? Or is it something more?

Is the idea of being seen on a major stage as Dustin Rhodes – the son of the best talker in the history of the business, a visionary, a pioneer, all-time great Dusty Rhodes – separating himself from the Goldust moniker and being recognized as a member of one of wrestling’s premiere families worth the possible humiliation?

According to him? Absolutely.

He knows it and you know it, but Cody seems to have forgotten it. What better way to remind Cody that he is not the only Rhodes around than by showing him slowly and brutally on the biggest stage in Vegas, in front of all his family, friends and fans?