cody worked heel this match. if he goes back to being a babyface on friday, i think that would be monumentally stupid. will he actually turn? the ending with randy punt kicking him seems to imply he won't. but there is 0 reason cody should walk out both a face and champion tonight.
He works every match heel anon
>>20279534retarded fucking company and fuck AEW for not being able to put on anything better because they insist on doing retarded indie bullshit what the fuck is wrong with everyone in wrestling
>>20279534Had a tough match is a nice guy who loves his wife and kiss his daughter grow up
>>20279534>crowd sings song>cheers for him>match or promo starts>gets booed>crowd pops when winswhat fuck are we even doing here
The whole story of the last few years is Cody losing friends over the title and him cracking under that betrayal and pressure of being the FOTC. When/if he turns, it will be at Mania. I've got it for next year as it will be him vs Punk and Punk is his last friend left, so he turns on him before Punk can betray him.>>20279652Cody can always win them back in the end.
>>20279534This is consistent with where the character was going. Last year he lost the belt because he was reluctant to hit Cena with the title, then Cena took the opportunity himself. This year he had the talk with Stephanie about psycho Randy, and the weeks following had Cody talking about how he has begun listening to the voices in his own head telling him to embrace a killer instinct to ensure he doesn't fall prey again this year. I'm not gonna praise this like it's deep and moving or anything, but it adds up. Cody was impressive from beginning to end tonight.
>>20279652Well it was a matchRandy's back is in terrible shape and shouldn't be wrestling a match like this, they went to long and saved the match they crowd booed the blood then cody for hitting a bleeding man then randy for being a heel then cody etcAt the end Randy just rkoed onto everything and Cody took advantage of the confusion and won, crowd was happyAftermatch was cruel and unnecessary maybe I would watch another match
>>20279534I think it was shortly after the SNME match with KO, but Cody cut a promo once where he stated: "Sometimes, doing the right thing doesn't look like the right thing." I never forgot that line because it really does define and justify a lot of what Cody does in the ring. In this match, for example, taking advantage of a back injury isn't necessarily poor sportsmanship. It's just the nature of competition. When Orton got busted open, obviously you hone in on that new weak point. Orton tries to go low, Cody sees it coming and returns the favor. That's karma. Remember too what Steph told Cody about needing to go to another level in order to beat this version of Orton. Ultimately, this match proved that the student has become the master, because nothing Cody did was anything Orton would hesitate to do if roles were reversed. But Orton still kept one trick up his sleeve post-match.
>>20279652The audience has a pavlova response for his entrance but are tired of his character
>>20279652Vegas crowds suck, Mania crowds are typically full of contrarian smarks, put them together and you get what you got.
>>20279534Everything dirty that Cody did in this match is something that Randy did to him first.
>>20279716I like that story.
>>20281103Basically this. It's simple stuff that smarks for some reason can't comprehend.
>>20279591Spbp
>>20279534100% stays face
>>20279652Nobody knows anymore. This is just shit happening at this point.
>>20281211We can comprehend it, we just don't want another long boring CAWdy run when he won it back from drew for no reason
>>20281244that fucking part
>>20281244>But I wanted the bad guy to win!You'll survive, smark.
>>20279591wwe does indie bullshit now too, in addition to whatever tonight was
>>20281256the bad guy was Cody though? that's why the audience was booing him.
>>20279652edrones are shoot slow
>>20281244What about Cody having the belt is so repulsive? That's what I don't understand about this opinion. He still cuts good promos, he's still a well-defined character and he still puts on good matches more often than not. I hear people say "he's better chasing a belt," but to your point, he just did that with Drew, and Cody got it back because the whole reason Drew got it in the first place was to give Fatu a story going into Mania. More importantly, you can't book a face to hunt down a belt for however long and then just not let them have a run with it. Keeping someone perpetually in the hunt will lose its luster if they have always have butter fingers after they win.
>>20281286No, they were booing him because they're smarks like you.>What about Cody having the belt is so repulsive?Smarks are incapable of being happy. They could belt up Chad Gable and within two weeks every one of these people would turn on him.
>>20281315>40,000 people that attend the shows instead of crying in 4chan are the real smarks
>>20281286Cody got booed because the audience thinks he's boring compared to Orton. It had nothing to do with the face/heel dynamic, a point illustrated best by Pat's involvement, clearly positioning Orton as the heel. Why Orton turned on Pat is anyone's guess, but that doesn't constitute a face turn either, as evidenced by punting Cody post-match, a move put on the same level as a Piledriver in WWE for how dangerous it is.
>>20281303>Keeping someone perpetually in the hunt will lose its luster if they have always have butter fingers after they win.Yes that's right. Same with keeping someone perpetually holding the title. Cody had a 378 day run with the belt, 105 days without it, 159 days with it back in his hand, 56 days without it, and now has been holding it for 44+ days. His character has rarely been the underdog, he's rarely chased. He's held the title longer than he's been without it and it's stale. He's rarely had a feud that doesn't revolve around it, and when he didn't have belt, he rarely spent time away from it. It was only fighting for the belt. People are bored because that's all he does and it's stale.
>>20281369These people actively want to dislike the show. It's as simple as that.
>>20279534He’s not turning heel bro, just let it go already.
>>20281420>Cody had a 378 day run with the belt, 105 days without it,Turning Cena heel was a mistake and putting the belt back on Cody was course correction for both characters.>159 days with it back in his hand, 56 days without itThe surprise nature of Drew's win worked, but it was executed on a premise that always implied it wasn't meant to be a long run, between Fatu's incidental help in making it so and Drew's consistent cowardice in fighting Cody again.>and now has been holding it for 44+ days.Orton winning the title here would only have further invalidated Drew's run, on top of proving Pat right.>His character has rarely been the underdog, he's rarely chased.The period of time between Mania 39 and Mania 40 was one big chase back to Roman, and he was against unprecedented odds once he won the Rumble again.>He's rarely had a feud that doesn't revolve around it, and when he didn't have belt, he rarely spent time away from it. It was only fighting for the belt. People are bored because that's all he does and it's stale.Now here, you raise a good point. Pretty much the only non-title feud he's had was with Brock, which turned out excellently for both guys in the end. But also consider his character: since coming back, he's wanted to elevate the Rhodes legacy. To do that, in his eyes, he needs that belt, specifically the WWE Championship, and especially now that he's lost it before. What else is needed for an old-school babyface like Cody? His character isn't supposed to be nuanced in that regard. He's a hero, and classically, the hero wins in the end. It's what common audiences like. It's what makes money. It's necessary, and nobody does it better today than Cody.
I'm just a bit confused by the storytelling. Cody doing heel stuff is fine, he's just playing on an even field I suppose. But Orton flip flops the whole match. Heel at the start, then he's essentially playing a wounded babyface most of the match, then he turns on McAfee but then he also punts Cody after losing? I guess it's to continue the feud but I'm not sure who they want people to cheer? I imagine the idea was to get Pat out of the story? Weird ending, I would have honestly gave the title to Randy, unless he is shoot hurt.
>>20281636It's not that Randy is a wounded babyface. It's that Cody isn't slowing down just because he's hurt. Last year Cody wouldn't fight dirty, and he lost because of it. This year he's willing to do what it takes to win, and he didn't do anything to Randy that Randy didn't do to him first on this road to WrestleMania. Even at the end when Cody hit his finisher on Randy after Randy took out Pat, that's exactly how Randy beat Cody at Elimination Chamber.
>>20279534Stephanie told him that he needed to “unlock” the voices in order to beat Randy, so he did. Cody has always been ruthless to his opponents, but a nice babyface to the fans>>20279652It’s Vegas. Over half the crowd are wrestling tourists that just see the legacy names on the marquee and cheer for that.
The busted eye is a work. His entrance tonight was showing all his various gimmicks. Monday, he's coming out at Raw with a new gimmick featuring an eyepatch.
>2026>still thinking Cody is turning heelThe trannies have been saying this since 2020 and it never happenedOr are you one of those same troons who never fucking learn
>>20279534nothing is gonna happen, and every smackdown episode will start with a monologue from cody about nothing as usual
>>20279534Cody's gimmick is he's willing to do heelish things in order to level the playing field against the heels he's up against. They do it almost every time.
