Cody Rhodes Says Becoming a Dad Changed His Perspective on Wrestling (Exclusive)

WWE star Cody Rhodes is getting real about how becoming a father changed his perspective on work and his career.

Rhodes, 39, spoke to PEOPLE exclusively while attending a Monday Night Raw event in Los Angeles on Monday, Jan. 6. During the conversation, Rhodes — who shares daughter Liberty Iris, 3, with wife and retired wrestler Brandi Rhodes —  said that fatherhood “changed everything” and revealed that he considers wrestling to be an inherently “selfish” career.

“So wrestling is selfish, and you got to get to the top, and you want to be number one,” Cody says. “And for so long — I even said this to [pro wrestler] Kevin Owens last week in the ring — I wanted it for me.”

“To a degree, maybe I wanted it for my dad a little. I wanted it for him,” he adds. “Having a daughter right out of the gate, all of that went away. It was not about where I am. It was more about the life that I could give her.”

“You have to really search inside your soul, like, how much do you really mean that?” the two-time Intercontinental Championship winner says. “And for me, I felt like, no, that’s really it. I just want her to have the best life.”

Cody — whose father, Dusty Rhodes, was also an accomplished professional wrestler —  noted that he wants to give his daughter everything he had growing up and more. 

“I had the best life provided by pro wrestling. I want to give her an even, you know, more special —  another level of that,” Cody explains. “And she’s changed everything for me. You have to go home and report back to a three-and-a-half-year-old who doesn’t care if you just wrestled in front of 80,000 people. She cares if you make funny noises and there’s ice cream, you know? So changed everything for me in the best of ways.”

The wrestling superstar also admitted that he now feels like the adoration of thousands of anonymous fans at an event would feel “hollow” if he didn’t have his biggest fan — his daughter — waiting at home for him.

“That’s [the] number one priority for me … being a father and being a husband, and it’s actually helped me in my career, so I’m so glad for it.”

The WrestleMania 40 champion shared that while he’s a relatively quiet person, he has accepted the public nature of his chosen profession.

“My life’s never been private,” he says. “My dad was into this, and I got into it, and our life was always very public.”

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However, Rhodes also said that he does sometimes wish that the public understood that he’s “actually very private and reserved.” 

“I feel like if you meet me at the airport at 3 o’clock in the morning, I will always sign, I will always take a picture. But I’m just kind of a curmudgeon, grumpy little dude,” he says. “I wish people realized I’m not as friendly as my brother [wrestler Dustin Rhodes] … is the best way to put it. All these guys here [in the WWE] are like, ‘Oh, your brother’s so great.’  I’m like, ‘Yeah, he’s nice. I’m the mean one.’ ”

Monday Night Raw airs live every Monday on Netflix at 8 p.m. ET.