Happy anniversary, Cody Rhodes. The WWE’s current Universal Champion has now officially hit one year in his title reign. Yes, it’s been exactly 365 days since that WrestleMania finale, in which a procession of legendary babyfaces turned up in Philadelphia to help the good guy beat The Bloodline and win the title that forever eluded his father.
We all know the consensus on Rhodes' title win: It’s rightly regarded as a stone-cold classic (and will no doubt be in the top 10 of the WWE’s current countdown of the best WrestleMania moments on YouTube). But how has Rhodes fared as champion in the time since?
In truth, maintaining the insane momentum Rhodes took out of WrestleMania 40 was always going to be a challenge. As friend of Uncrowned Marc Raimondi explained on "The Ariel Helwani Show" in March, the currency of the babyface is always in the chase — and Rhodes was the textbook example of that phenomenon.
We all remember how we felt after “The American Nightmare” fell short in Hollywood back in the spring of 2023. Or when the defeated Rhodes arrived on “WWE Raw” the next night, only to find himself savaged by a backstabbing Brock Lesnar. Or when our hero found himself beaten bloody in a rain-soaked parking lot by “The Final Boss.” Those were the moments where we felt ourselves rooting for Rhodes on that deep, emotional level.
Once the babyface gets the gold, by contrast, all that momentum dissipates. Watching Rhodes receive his flowers from a tearful WWE universe in Philadelphia may have made our hearts flutter, but we also knew — deep down — that we were mourning the end of one of the best storylines in modern wrestling.
Deciding where to go from there was always going to be trickier. After a two-year chase for the big prize, Rhodes’ first title defense was always going to feel like a foregone conclusion — hence the decision to have the babyface offer it to one of his longest-standing friends in the business, AJ Styles.
Let’s start with the obvious positives: Not only did the two men put on a veritable masterclass of wrestling in their May 2024 showdown, they also ...
