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So GQ, what do you wanna talk about?
I'm The American Nightmare, Cody Rhodes,
and here are 10 things I can't live without.
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My first essential, I would say is the most essential.
And it is a photo of my wife, my daughter, and myself.
Not just a photo of family,
which obviously that's why it's essential.
But at a certain point in the past year,
going into WrestleMania, my tour bus set on fire
outside of Lincoln Financial Field.
And I had a few minutes, more like a few seconds,
and this was the first thing I grabbed.
These are the whys in what I do.
In the entertainment business, in pro wrestling,
the suspension of disbelief, whatever,
however you look at it, competitive or performance,
it's a shark infested show business.
I think maybe I used to be one of those sharks.
And then I met this lady
and had this beautiful little daughter
and that changed everything for me.
So they're the ultimate why in what I do.
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It's as simple as it gets.
It is an American flag baseball cap,
USA, Stars and Stripes baseball cap.
If you go into a gas station, you can find it.
If you go on Amazon, you can find it.
I'm very lucky I get to be in sports entertainment,
pro wrestling 'cause it's not about politics.
It's about, hey, this is one thing that we like,
regardless of where we sit on the spectrum,
we like this together,
let's do this pro wrestling thing.
But yeah, this hat goes everywhere with me
because it's also my little incognito hat to the airport.
I've been told that my incognito outfit
is actually so covert, it's overt.
'Cause I always wear this hat
and then I'll wear a sleeveless hoodie
with the hood pulled over it.
Try to cover up the tattoo
if I'm just trying to move through.
But I can say that with wrestling,
having hit this new phase of popularity,
it's not as easy as it used to be.
It's by no means a problem.
It's the greatest complaint to have,
but it's not just one or two people anymore.
It's become kind of a madhouse whenever I go anywhere.
But yeah, it's also part of my little kayfabe
as we like to say in the wrestling business.
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This manifestation, this physical form of the title belt,
this dates way, way, way, way back.
50 plus years of history when it was originally the WWWF.
This is even pre WWF,
this was the World Wide Wrestling
Federation's championship belt.
The same one that Buddy Rogers had.
The same one that superstar Billy Graham had.
New York legend Bruno Sammartino had.
And it is the same title that in the Garden in 1977,
my dad put around his waist,
went up on the buckle and held it up
only to have not won the title based on the technicality
of someone going over the top rope.
So he had it and he let the people see
that he had it and have that moment.
But then it was taken away from him.
That became it, eight years old, I want to win this title.
And while he was still alive, I wanted to hand it to him.
The whole tagline of finish the story,
it stems from this moment in New York in 1977.
And I feel like at WrestleMania 39, last year WrestleMania,
everybody thought, oh that's the most obvious thing ever.
Cody's gonna win the WWE championship and start that run.
The first time ever I rose with the WWE title.
Didn't happen.
The task then got even hairier in a sense
that The Rock decided to show back up
and decided, oh, I'm just gonna take the match
that Cody was slotted for.
And in the end, all of this chaos,
something magical happened.
We get to WrestleMania 40, we finish the story.
I'd say one of the things I like about the title a lot
is it's no longer a matter of, it's not a name plate.
Now it's all about your individual side plates.
I also love that this title is
specifically this generation's title.
I am fond of the Winged Eagle,
which is the title from the 1990s.
Hulk Hogan wore it, Ultimate Warrior wore it,
Ric Flair wore it, Brett Hart wore it.
And I am actively trying to find a way
to get that into the WWE world.
But this is also the title that was around
Roman Reigns' waist the night I beat him.
And there's a part of that that makes me more linked
to this look and this aesthetic
for a WWE championship than ever.
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Another essential item happens to be on me at all times.
This is a Rolex Datejust Jubilee bracelet.
Rolexes are all special in their own way.
But this is my father's Rolex.
I have a couple that I've purchased,
I have an Omega that I really love as well.
But this one is the most important in the collection.
Around the time I graduated high school,
knowing I didn't want to pursue anything in college,
knowing all I ever wanted to be was a pro wrestler,
I got a little worried, a little gun shy
that I wasn't big enough.
I thought I'd be 6'6.
Well it turned out I wasn't 6'6.
So I decided, you know what?
I'm gonna go to the Howard Fine Acting Studio in LA.
I'm gonna go to LA and then if I get big as an actor,
I can jump into wrestling.
Absolute nonsense.
He did everything you could possibly do
right as a father.
I remember leaving that morning
to drive my Volkswagen Jetta from Roswell, Georgia
all the way to Studio City, California.
And he had $10,000 in cash,
and he had given me that to make my way out there
and start and get a little place.
He'd even set me up with a job.
I'd find out later after he passed
when going around the room with all the goods.
You get this, you get this.
Nobody got the Rolex.
So I asked my mom and she told me, yeah,
I thought you knew he pawned that
to get the money for you to go to LA.
Three men, Bruce Pritchard, Triple H, and Nick Kahn,
they knew where to go.
And this was something I received
after receiving what was already the greatest night
of my professional career in WrestleMania 40.
Right there in gorilla for the world to see.
And it's as essential as essential gets.
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Right here coming in, Suavecito.
Suavecito Pomade to be specific.
And it's an outstanding hair product.
And my mom, the Cuban side of our family,
I didn't realize I was gonna have the thickest hair
imaginable amongst my friends
and that it would grow at a rate that is almost terrifying.
Especially now that all my friends are around me balding,
ha ha ha, I'm not.
But this is the only stuff
that they actually can do anything with this mess.
It's gotta have product in it.
The other element of it is I am not a natural blonde.
So I am coloring this hair on a frequent basis,
especially with the amount it grows.
This helps me on all ends, not just the thick hair,
but the color treated hair.
Suavecito.
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My lovely wife gave me a pair of Louis Vuitton cufflinks.
These are not my Louis Vuitton cufflinks.
These are the first cufflinks I ever got.
They're bullets.
It was at a time when I had left WWE, which was unheard of.
Nobody quit WWE, they'd fire you or you'd stay for life.
And I was a nepo baby, a nepotism hire.
Dad and brother, I was gonna have this gig forever.
I felt I needed to get out
and actually make an attempt at it.
And I went all over the world wrestling,
independent promotions, different companies,
refused to sign a contract.
I'm bringing the same brand, The American Nightmare,
the same walkout song, Kingdom is playing.
I'm bringing that everywhere I go.
Along the way, I joined what's called the Bullet Club
in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
And they actually gave me the name The American Nightmare.
I own a lot of cufflinks,
I have a lot of Star Wars cufflinks
'cause I think people know I'm a big,
massive Star Wars fan.
But the go-to ones are usually my Louis Vuitton.
The little dots.
I feel most comfortable in a suit.
I have some of the cheapest suits,
I have some of the most expensive suits.
It's all about the fit.
And especially with what I do,
you're looking for a little splash of color.
You're looking to be under the lights, under the camera.
Oh well SmackDown's a blue lighting treatment.
Raw is a red lighting treatment.
You don't wanna blend in.
How do you separate yourself?
So it's all about the fit.
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This is one of my most essential items.
It is a rock.
This one is special
because my daughter made it at a little art studio
and she's only three, so she's just now starting
to actually put the finishing touches on things herself.
But yeah, Liberty Runnels.
Sometimes she'd leave a plushie behind in my bag
or something like that and I'd want to keep it
'cause I have have that connection to her.
But I didn't have anything that I carried with me.
My dad always had trinkets that we made him and gave him
and he put 'em in a suitcase.
My sister had made this little plush mouse.
His name was Coco G-Wo.
So this stays in my travel bag.
But yeah, this is a rock.
Not to be confused with The Rock.
This is just a rock.
There it is.
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It's just a Nintendo Switch.
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I don't have enough time
and commitment to jump into a modern big time
console game like an Elden Ring.
However, I can get on the SNES collection on my Switch
and I can play Donkey Kong all day long.
It is absolutely essential for me.
Let's go top five overall on the game side of things.
Number five, Ghost of Tsushima.
Ghost of Tsushima works really great for me
because it's a narrative game.
History of Japan's included in there.
Love that, that's gonna be my number five.
Number four is going to be
the original Halo: Combat Evolved.
That was the first.
And obviously I know we had FPSs before,
we had GoldenEye.
Gosh, it's the dangdest, it's the best.
But Halo had a streamlined element to it.
I am a terrible marksman in Halo,
but if you put me on the back of a warthog,
I can get that flag.
Three spot, Red Dead Redemption 2.
I never even played the first Red Dead Redemption.
I didn't even know what was going on, but Arthur's story.
Plus I have this love for America
and the history of America.
Here you are going through this period, post Civil War.
What's it like?
So I loved Red Dead Redemption 2.
All righty, we're down to the final two.
It's easy for me.
Number two is the original Metal Gear Solid.
To me it's a game changer.
And when the movie comes out
and it's a big blockbuster massive hit
and everyone's like, oh, where's the source material?
It's right here, Metal Gear Solid
for the original PlayStation.
It changed everything about modern games.
Number one, right to it.
The main event, the champion of all games is
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
It just is.
And there'll be people who watch this
and they're like, oh, Majora's Mask.
Majora's Mask is like DLC dog.
It's great, but it's an extension of Ocarina of Time.
Those are my top five.
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Boom.
Good old fashioned pro wrestling boots,
which are apparently are out of style these days.
But these are traditional, well, I guess not so traditional.
And what makes them not so traditional
is I don't do a lace-up.
I do a zip and a couple buttons, always the top two buttons.
I never button the bottom button.
You gotta do this seg one promo,
three piece suit, ready to rock.
You've got a match in seg six, so you gotta get dressed.
The last thing I got time to do
is individually lace my wrestling boots.
So these have been my go-to,
and these are important, these are essential.
Here's evidence that they're essential.
Told you about that picture earlier of my family.
The only other item that I got off the bus
when my air conditioning unit set ablaze was my boots.
Somebody was asking the other day.
They were trying to define like a specific point
when things really changed for me.
One of those specific points is the first time
I put on the robe that I have now, which people liken
to the character Homelander from The Boys.
I think that's more of the two blonde people.
The design for all of my gear,
the design and the work itself,
comes from a woman named Sandra Gray
who has outfitted almost every wrestler ever
in every company and has been doing it
since the early nineties.
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I am a big time fan of cigars.
I know it's not everyone's favorite thing.
I do not encourage anyone to smoke
or anything of that nature.
It's just something that I found I like.
I liked the ritual of it, to be able to sit there
and focus and think.
Pulling it in for 30 seconds and then letting it go.
This particular cigar, it is an Arturo Fuente 858.
This is the Maduro.
And anytime you hear Maduro,
it's a darker wrapper is essentially a way
to look at it versus in a Connecticut
or a natural shade that is not dark.
A lighter color cigar is a great starter cigar.
The reason why it matters to me, this is my family's cigar.
It was the cigar that my dad, my brother, every year,
here's another box of cigars, here's another box.
And to have that element
of my mother's father being from Cuba,
just something I fell into.
I'm not one that's, I need to be smoking a cigar every day.
For me, it's gotta be a kind of a milestone.
Whether that's the one rare day off you get
or it's a big, you win a huge match.
One of my favorite things on the planet
and the ritual of it.
It'll always be part of my life, I think.
GQ, thank you so much for having me
and please check out SummerSlam streaming on Peaco*ck
where I will be defending one of my essential items.
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