The 2008 throwback nobody asked for but everyone is reading

Sometimes you read a headline and you have to double-check the date on your phone to make sure you aren't living in a fever dream from a decade ago. Apparently, former WWE talent Layla recently dropped the mic on her past relationship with Cody Rhodes. Her reasoning for the coupling? She saw the writing on the wall before the American Nightmare mask even existed.

She essentially told the world she dated the guy because he had that specific "future top guy" smell. It is cold, calculated, and frankly, hilarious. Imagine looking at a guy in his early 20s wearing trunks and thinking, yeah, this is my career-advancing stock option.

The irony of the Cody Rhodes trajectory

Cody in those days was arguably the most "mid-card" human being to ever walk the earth. He was running around with Ted DiBiase Jr. as Legacy, doing the "Dashing" gimmick with the mirror, and trying his absolute hardest to stay relevant on a stacked roster. Nobody—and I mean nobody—looked at 2008 Cody Rhodes and thought he was the future of the industry.

We were all busy watching Edge and Undertaker wreck each other or waiting for Batista to hit a spinebuster. Layla, meanwhile, was clearly playing 4D chess while the rest of us were playing checkers. She saw the pedigree. She saw the Dusty gene. It is the wrestling equivalent of buying Bitcoin when it was worth a pack of gum.

But is it actually a flex?

Let's be real for a second: airing this out is a weird look for anyone involved. We all have exes we probably wouldn't talk about in a public forum, let alone while they are currently the biggest babyface on the planet. It feels like she is trying to grab a slice of the pie while the man is selling out arenas globally and holding titles that didn't exist when they were an item.

As reported by Wrestling Inc, the admission is making the rounds because it feeds straight into the narrative of Cody being the 'chosen one' who finally fulfilled the prophecy. It is funny to see the corporate machine at TKO try to sanitize everything while former talents are out here revealing that their dating life was just a long-term investment portfolio.

The reality check

The problem with looking at wrestlers as investments is that you ignore the actual slog it takes to get to the top. Cody didn't become a star by staying in WWE and playing the game. He had to go to the indies, help launch AEW, wrestle in high school gyms, and get his chest chewed up by barbed wire before he became the guy Layla allegedly predicted he would be.

Saying you saw it coming is the easiest game to play in the world. Being there for the 18-minute dog-collar matches in independent promotions? That is where the loyalty is actually forged. Layla is just lucky Cody has a flair for the dramatic, or this story would have been buried in a mid-2000s locker room gossip pile. It’s all a bit transparent, even by the low standards of wrestling social media.