Damian Priest Has Been A Better World Champion Than Cody Rhodes

Sportskeeda Wrestling

Check out Sportskeeda's brand new game, BrainBuster! Can you become the undisputed quiz champion? Play now to find out - https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/brainbuster-wwe-player-guessing-game  Damian Priest's title reign so far is arguably better than of Cody Rhodes. Do u agree with us? if not let us compare and contrast these two phenomenal athletes, their matches, and their storylines. Whether you’re a fan of Priest’s hard-hitting style or Rhodes’ classic wrestling heritage, this video offers an engaging and balanced discussion.  You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe  #codyrhodes #damianpriest #judgementday #wwe #wrestling #sportskeedawrestling

Transcript

00:00We're now approaching the 4 month mark for both Cody Rhodes and Damian Priest as world

00:05champions in WWE.

00:07Both them won their respective world championships on Wrestlemania 40 Sunday, but it's actually

00:12been a tale of two completely different stories with two totally different circumstances.

00:17Cody Rhodes' WWE Championship win was meant to signal his arrival as WWE's new number

00:23one guy, while Damian Priest was thought of as nothing more than a transitional champion.

00:28Nobody doubted Damian Priest was deserving of his spot, it had more to do with the fact

00:33that Drew McIntyre, Gunther and Seth Rollins were all hotter at the time.

00:38Since Clash at the Castle was set to be held in Drew McIntyre's home country of Scotland,

00:43it seemed all but guaranteed that Damian Priest was going to lose his World Heavyweight title.

00:49But in a bit of a twist, Triple H and his creative team decided to use that setting

00:54to fuel the hottest rivalry in wrestling today, Drew McIntyre vs CM Punk.

01:01After that, the transitional champion argument had little merit to it.

01:05Once Senor Money in the Bank turned into El Campeon, he's become better than ever, possibly

01:10the best he's ever been.

01:13We would go as far as to argue that he has been the better of the two world champions

01:17so far, even better than Cody Rhodes.

01:20Why do we think so?

01:21Let's get into it!

01:38Like we said before, the circumstances surrounding Damian Priest and Cody Rhodes' world title

01:43reigns couldn't be any different.

01:45Context is key, so we should acknowledge the fact that the expectations for Cody Rhodes

01:50as WWE Champion were sky high, while the expectations for Damian Priest, not so much.

01:57People don't really expect much from so-called transitional champions, so that alone made

02:01it a bit easier for Damian Priest to surpass the hopes that people had for his title reign.

02:06With that said, we don't want to discredit Damian Priest because he's actually had to

02:11overcome a few hiccups in his short title reign so far.

02:14The story is being told that while Damian Priest has been the undisputed Judgment Day

02:18leader in Rhea Ripley's absence, he doesn't actually want the Judgment Day's help in

02:23his matches.

02:24Despite this, every title defense of his has been riddled with some interference or the

02:28other leading to a direct conflict of interest.

02:32As Damian Priest continues to prove himself as a legitimate world champion, he hasn't

02:36been happy with the interferences in his title matches.

02:39He's hardly been a bad guy since becoming world heavyweight champion, and it's reflected

02:44in the fact that he gave Drew McIntyre a world title shot in Scotland and Seth Rollins

02:49a shot as soon as he returned.

02:51For the Seth Rollins match in particular, there was the added stipulation that if Rollins

02:55lost he wouldn't get the challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship as long as

03:00Damian Priest was the champion.

03:02When Seth Rollins got screwed at Money in the Bank thanks to CM Punk, Damian Priest

03:06changed the gentlemen's agreement to give Seth Rollins another shot at the title should

03:11he retain at Summerslam.

03:13So yes, while there is always that asterisk around Damian Priest's title defenses, it

03:18hasn't objectively been his fault.

03:20He just so happened to benefit from the never-ending crossfire of Drew McIntyre and CM Punk.

03:26He has never shied away from a challenge, and that's why he's managed to earn the

03:29respect of so many people just 3 years after he debuted on the main roster.

03:37The man's been wrestling for like 9 years, and he already feels like he's a 20-year

03:42veteran.

03:43While he isn't going to get a super long championship reign, history will look back

03:46on his title run favorably.

03:48Damian Priest has always been a reliable guy, and when the opportunity came he truly stepped

03:53up to the plate.

03:54It certainly helps that Raw has been hotter than Smackdown for a minute, but let's now

03:59explore why Cody Rhodes' title run could have been better.

04:03And just a reminder, this is only our opinion.

04:06With Cody Rhodes as WWE Champion, the idea was always to give him a run worthy of his

04:10coronating moment.

04:12After all, we're talking about someone from wrestling royalty, someone who made the

04:17bold decision of leaving his comfortable paycheck in WWE to make a name for himself, someone

04:22whose years of hard work finally came to fruition.

04:25For 2 years, Cody has been positioned as the guy, he's the one who has chosen to end

04:31Roman Reigns' unprecedented run as Universal Champion.

04:35But where has it fallen short for him in the 3 months post-Wrestlemania?

04:40This isn't a knock on Cody's popularity because he's much more popular than Damian

04:44Priest is and will likely be for many years to come.

04:48Perhaps it has to do with the incredibly high demands that comes with winning the most prestigious

04:51prize in the industry.

04:53It doesn't help that he had to follow one of the best championship reigns of all time

04:57either.

04:58That plus the popularity he has occurred over the last 8 years automatically puts him in

05:02a position where people expect a lot more from him than they would for a guy like Damian

05:07Priest.

05:08In terms of his title reign, it hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been turbulent or exciting

05:14either.

05:15The biggest issue is that it kinda seems like there's no major plan for his title reign

05:19outside of Roman Reigns and The Rock.

05:22With Roman Reigns, there's the trilogy match and a rematch that writes itself, so that's

05:27gonna be the biggest milestone of Cody's title reign assuming it happens in the coming

05:31months.

05:32And then there was the tease of The Rock vs Cody Rhodes when The Rock said on the Raw

05:36after Wrestlemania 40 that their story was just beginning.

05:41That kind of revealed a couple things.

05:43Firstly, barring any major injury, Cody Rhodes is almost certainly going to be WWE Champion

05:48for a full year.

05:50This isn't very surprising because long championship reigns have become the norm in

05:54the Triple H era.

05:56It makes sense anyway, when you build a star like Cody for 2 years, why just give him a

06:00short meaningless run?

06:03But the second thing that we got from that Rock Cody interaction is that WWE really has

06:07only 2 major benchmark moments planned for his championship run.

06:12The rest seems to be filler and it's kind of showing just 3 months in.

06:16The AJ Styles matches were good, especially the first one, but the second one did not

06:22have to end the way it did.

06:23It was a disappointing end to their feud.

06:26Seriously, of all freaking things, hollow steel steps are what broke AJ Styles and forced

06:31him to say I quit?

06:33Come on!

06:34Triple H's approach involves a consistent, structured way of storytelling with the aim

06:39of a bigger payoff, but the tradeoff for this is that it involves a lot of predictability.

06:44The game is in it for the long haul and to his credit, it's one of the biggest reasons

06:48why WWE is red hot right now.

06:51That's why we saw the Bloodline feud, the 6 man tag team match at Money in the Bank,

06:57and Cody getting pinned by Solo Sokoa.

06:59It's all likely ending up to Roman Reigns' big return.

07:03The strategy seems to be to occupy Cody with one feud for a few months.

07:08This could work, but a bit more needs to be done to build up excitement for it.

07:13The best example of this is his match against Solo Sokoa at Summerslam.

07:18Solo not being ready is a different story, but it's kind of disappointing to see Solo

07:22in that spot instead of Roman Reigns in the main event of Summerslam.

07:26It's not a good idea to build a championship reign off of just two major matches, especially

07:31when the title run is possibly going to last for a whole year.

07:34We've seen Cody in two rivalries so far, and it hasn't been the most exciting championship

07:39reign.

07:40It's not his fault, but WWE needs to start putting more effort into the feuds that we

07:45know Cody will win, because if not, his run will continue to be underwhelming.

07:50The main reason why Damian Priest has arguably been a better champion is that the expectations

07:55weren't as high for him to begin with.

07:57But his character at the moment is also progressing a lot more than Cody's, so that makes it

08:02exciting knowing that he could potentially be slotted into becoming a good guy and potentially

08:07splitting from the Judgment Day.

08:09There seems to be a plan in place for how the rest of the year could go for Cody, but

08:13it's not very clear.

08:15It could just be him feuding with Roman Reigns and Randy Orton, a WarGames match at Survivor

08:20Series, and then a different rivalry for the Royal Rumble.

08:23Either way, given that people want more out of him as a WWE champion, the solution is

08:28simply to intensify the rivalries by adding big moments and big stakes, with room for

08:33a few unexpected surprises time and again.

08:36It's hard to create moments where you genuinely think that Cody is going to lose his title,

08:41but they've managed to do it so many times before with Roman Reigns, so it's not impossible.

08:46Cody having a character change altogether makes no sense for the foreseeable future,

08:51but there has to be more work put into it to get his character forward and make changes

08:55on that front too.

08:56The same Cody we've seen in the past two years won't be enough to sustain his popularity

09:01as WWE Champion.

09:03It's going to be interesting to see how history remembers Cody Rhodes' reign.

09:08Thank you for watching.

Category

Transcript

Recommended