Success has a million ex-girlfriends

Cody Rhodes is sitting on top of the world right now. He walked out of Allegiant Stadium last month after WrestleMania 41 with the WWE Championship still over his shoulder. He has successfully navigated the Bloodline drama. He has the suits, the pyro, the bus, and the absolutely unhinged devotion of millions of fans who scream the lyrics to his entrance music like it is a religious hymn.

When you reach that level of unquestioned superstardom, a funny thing happens. Suddenly, everyone in the wrestling business remembers exactly how much they believed in you from day one. You get the producers swearing they pitched you for the main event ten years ago. You get the veterans claiming they took you aside in catering to impart the secret knowledge of drawing money.

But this week, we got a brand new genre of historical revisionism. Former WWE star Layla El decided to drop the ultimate "I was there first" flex.

According to Ringside News, Layla recently reflected on her past relationship with Cody, dropping this premise on the public:

"Former Layla El is looking back at her past relationship with Cody Rhodes, and she says she already knew back then that he'd become a star."

Stop and think about that framing for a second. That is an objectively wild thing to say out loud.

Angel investing in the midcard

Normal people talk about their exes in terms of chemistry or shared interests. They mention how funny the person was, or how they met at a weird time in their lives. Layla is out here talking about dating Cody Rhodes like she was an angel investor evaluating a Silicon Valley tech startup in a garage.

She did not just swipe right. She supposedly looked at a 24-year-old kid wearing trunks, analyzed his total addressable market, projected his quarter-over-quarter growth, and decided to allocate romantic resources into the Rhodes IPO. It is the most ruthless, hilarious way to describe a relationship between two twenty-somethings on the road.

Let us take a trip back in the time machine to truly appreciate the absurdity of this claim. The timeline of them dating puts us right around the 2009 to 2011 era of WWE television. This was a wild period for both of them.

Layla was doing some of the best work of her career. Alongside Michelle McCool, LayCool was terrorizing the Divas division. They were genuinely the most entertaining and consistent part of a women's roster that the company was booking with absolute zero respect. They were getting legitimate heat every Friday night on SmackDown.

And what was Cody doing? He was carrying Randy Orton's bags.

The Legacy and the paper bags

Cody was stuck in the Legacy faction alongside Ted DiBiase Jr. He was taking RKOs every other week whenever Orton got slightly annoyed. He was wearing those ridiculously plain trunks and boots, functioning as a human shield. The most memorable thing he did during that entire run was getting punted in the skull. If you looked at Cody Rhodes in 2009 and saw the guy who would eventually end the greatest modern title reign in WWE history, you are either lying or you have a sports almanac from the future.

Even after Legacy exploded, Cody transitioned into his "Dashing" gimmick. Do not get me wrong, it was incredible sports entertainment. The grooming tips. The lip gloss. The clear plastic mask he wore after Rey Mysterio broke his nose. Handing out paper bags to the audience to hide their hideous faces.

It was fantastic midcard character work. But it absolutely screamed "career Intercontinental Champion." Nobody looks at a guy handing a paper bag to a fan in the third row and thinks he is going to headline back-to-back WrestleManias. You do not look at the clear plastic mask and see the face of a billion-dollar corporate juggernaut.

If Layla actually saw the "American Nightmare" inside "Dashing" Cody Rhodes, the Orlando Magic need to hire her as their lead talent scout immediately.

The nostalgia interview grift

We are currently living in the golden age of the wrestling interview grift. Every single day, a new aggregate headline drops featuring someone who worked for WWE between 2004 and 2014. They are almost always talking about someone who is currently drawing massive money. It is a calculated move to stay in the news cycle without actually doing any current work in the business.

Think about the sheer volume of these quotes we get every month. Someone is always claiming they gave Seth Rollins the idea for the Stomp. Some retired midcarder insists they told Triple H that Roman Reigns was the real Tribal Chief a decade ago. It is an exhausting parade of imaginary clairvoyants.

The reality is far less romantic. Back in the day, the locker room was a snake pit of paranoia. Nobody was giving out brilliant career advice or spotting future billionaire draw potential in between catering and the Gorilla position. They were trying to survive the week without getting yelled at by a mercurial 70-year-old boss.

So when Layla drops a quote like this, you have to look at the mechanics of why she is saying it. She is doing press. She needs a hook. Claiming you dated Cody Rhodes because he was cute does not make it to the front page of wrestling sites. Claiming you dated Cody Rhodes because your third eye opened and you saw him main eventing in Las Vegas gets aggregated everywhere.

The Stardust years and the real gamble

This entire quote exposes the absolute desperation of the current wrestling media machine. It is harmless enough, but it is deeply annoying. People are desperate for engagement algorithms, and the easiest way to farm clicks in May 2026 is to drop the name of the undisputed top guy.

The biggest problem with this narrative is that it completely dilutes the actual struggle Cody went through. It makes his rise seem like it was always written in the stars. It makes it sound inevitable.

It was not inevitable. It was a chaotic, miserable grind that almost derailed a dozen times.

Let's really dig into the Stardust years, because that is where the whole narrative completely falls apart. When WWE slapped that gold paint on Cody and made him do cartwheels, the entire industry wrote him off. He was seen as a comedy act. Every week, he would show up in a different colored bodysuit, cutting nonsensical promos in a dark room while holding a prop star. It was soul-crushing television. He was feuding with the star of the hit TV show Arrow at SummerSlam in painfully short gimmick matches.

There was no grand vision at that point. WWE management did not see a star. The fans actively rejected the gimmick, chanting for Cody while he hissed back at them. The dirt sheets were writing his career obituary every week. If Layla was holding onto her scouting report during this era, she was the only one in the world doing it.

He did not become a massive draw by accident. To get to this point, Cody had to survive:

  • The complete humiliation of the Stardust character.
  • Walking away from guaranteed WWE money to rebuild his name in independent armories.
  • Taking a massive gamble on the chaotic launch of AEW.
  • Tearing his pectoral muscle off the bone right before a Hell in a Cell match.

He had to leave the entire machine behind. He had to go to Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He had to join the Bullet Club just to get a fraction of his credibility back. He bet on himself when absolutely nobody else would, and he dragged his own career out of the mud.

Let's be brutally honest here. There is only one person who actually placed a bet on Cody Rhodes when his stock was at absolute rock bottom, and that is Brandi. Brandi married him during the dark years. She walked away from the biggest wrestling company in the world right alongside him. She was there for the indie bookings, the Tokyo Dome matches, and the birth of a rival promotion.

Brandi actually bought the dip. Layla is just trying to claim she liked the stock before it went public.

Stop rewriting history

I have zero issue with veterans staying relevant. I loved the LayCool run. They do not get nearly enough credit for holding down the fort during a bleak era for women's wrestling in WWE.

But we have to stop letting people rewrite history just because they dated a coworker 15 years ago. You dated a handsome, athletic guy in his twenties who happened to be the son of Dusty Rhodes. You did not crack the Enigma code. You did not foresee the massive neck tattoo. You certainly did not predict he would smash a throne with a sledgehammer on a rival promotion's pay-per-view before returning as a conquering hero.

Wrestling is a business built on myths. Promoters lie about attendance numbers. Wrestlers lie about their height. Now, apparently, ex-girlfriends are lying about their scouting reports.

Cody Rhodes built himself into a megastar through sheer force of will, a massive ego, and an unbelievable amount of risk tolerance. He did not become a star because it was his destiny, and he certainly did not become a star because someone saw it in him while he was checking his lip gloss in the reflection of the Intercontinental title.

So let's leave the scouting reports to the professionals. Layla gets points for a solid flex, but we are throwing the challenge flag on the play. You dated a guy at work. It happens. Just be happy he finally finished the story.