"Cody is a human being who is genuine and real, and he wears his heart and emotion on his sleeve. In Alabama [February 2nd WWE SmackDown], certainly, even if you tell me, ‘that would never work, it’s stupid to propose it.’ The idea was supposed to be, it’s like the Nixon-Kenedy debate a little bit where you read the transcript, you’re like ‘Nixon kicked his ass.’ If you watch the actual footage, ‘Oh, he was a sweaty terrible mess.’ Cody, it was supposed to be, in some form, ‘Yeah, Fuckin A! Go get em Rock! You’re going to get your ass kicked, Roman! Let’s do this!’ and this uplifting promo. Instead, he looked like someone shot his dog in the face in the parking lot. Just look at his expression. By the way, someone else, even when the team wins, looks forlorn and upset and despondent.
That, I don’t think, helped matters. It might not have changed or affected anything. Certainly, on paper, and I don’t blame Cody for that, he’s real and one of the realest people I’ve ever met. He said what he had to say in the promo, but you couldn’t mask what he was really feeling, and I think the fans felt that a lot. They felt like ‘he doesn’t mean a word of this. This is being forced for him to say.’ He’s despondent. He’s literally doing the Michael Cera-Arrested Development, Charlie Brown walk out of the arena when he’s supposed to be on cloud nine. I think that had a lot to do with it."
It wasn’t that long ago he was pretending that what happened with Cody was the plan all along… now he’s claiming Cody botched the story… all I can say is that for once it looks like the dirt sheets were right with initial reports Rock was pushing his way in and taking Cody’s spot.
I just can’t believe this isn’t part of whatever the build to Rock vs. Cody is going to be, otherwise this man comes across so badly, bitter fans didn’t want his vision. Why in the fuck after two years were we supposed to be happy Rock was bulldozing Cody, it makes no sense and just proves to me Rock and team didn’t follow the product at all.