Cody Rhodes is finally saying the quiet part out loud. On the latest episode of his podcast, What Do You Wanna Talk About?, with Santino Marella as his guest, WWE‘s top champion admitted that his signature neck tattoo, the one that’s been part of his look since before he even came back to WWE, is something he’d take back if he could.
“I stand by the fact that I think the work is great, and the artist is great. But I also will reveal, as I think I’ve revealed on this pod before. The neck tattoo I would consider the greatest regret of my life,” Rhodes said. “You know what? I’ll live with it. I ain’t trying to get it removed, and we’re gonna rock this till the very end.”
How We Got Here
Rhodes debuted the skull-shaped tattoo, done in the colors of the American flag, back in February 2020 at AEW Revolution, right as the American Nightmare persona was taking shape. The reaction at the time wasn’t exactly glowing, starting close to home. In her post-Revolution media scrum that same weekend, Brandi Rhodes didn’t hold back:
“I’m also the one person who doesn’t like the neck tattoo. I don’t like it. I’ve said it. There it is. Sorry, I don’t, I don’t like it,” Brandi said at the time, before adding some perspective on letting her husband make his own calls. “I know a lot of wives like to be really hands on, my husband makes his own decisions, he’s allowed to make his own decisions. So if I decide to do something crazy, he’s just gonna let me make my own decision.”
Santino Marella even brought up a joke from the Roast of Ric Flair, where a comedian cracked that “if Vickie Guerrero were any uglier, she’d be a tattoo on Cody Rhodes’ neck,” a line that reportedly got under Flair’s skin on Rhodes’ behalf.
The most honest moment came when Rhodes imagined what his late father, Dusty Rhodes, would say if he saw it.
“When I saw it, and it was in my jaw, and it was so big, my life changed looking in a mirror. If my dad were to come back to life, he would not say congrats. He would lose his s**t. ‘You’ve ruined yourself…’ I’d say it’s the greatest regret of my life. But it’s had some very beneficial elements of it. I don’t know. It’s complicated, the best way to put my relationship with the tattoo,” Rhodes concluded.
So no, the tattoo isn’t going anywhere. But it’s rare to hear Rhodes, one of the most polished talkers in the business, admit to a regret this openly, and it’s an oddly relatable look behind the curtain from the guy currently carrying WWE‘s top title.
