Cody Rhodes looks back on how his awkward first meeting with William Shatner created a lasting memory.
The debut episode of Rhodes’ new podcast, Everything But Wrestling, featured a discussion about Star Wars and Star Trek fandom, which led to a fun exchange where he revealed how he first met William Shatner and shared a hamburger with him.
One of Shatner’s most famous roles was playing Captain James T. Kirk, but he was actually in Detroit on this occasion to induct Jerry Lawler into the WWE Hall Of Fame. Cody explained how the FOX Theatre had dressing rooms on different floors, and he was going up to his dad’s room. Mistakenly stopping one floor short, Cody went into Shatner’s dressing room, so he tried to leave and not disturb him.
“I saw him, and instantly started to back out (of the room). He said, ‘Hey! When are we starting?’ So I thought, ‘well, I’ll help him out…’ [to Shatner] ‘I think they’re getting ready to start in the next hour. You’ve got some time, they’ll definitely come and get you.’ So this happens and I go to leave again and he goes, ‘Hey, do you want some of this?’ He’s got this Fuddrucker’s burger in front of him and it was out,” Cody explained. “He’d already taken a bite, so no. In my mind, I’m thinking, ‘No, I don’t want this burger, but I don’t want to say no to William Shatner.’
“So I said, ‘Yeah, I want that.’ And he handed it to me, hand on hand, handed me the burger—and I don’t even like burgers with condiments, I’m a meat and ketchup-only person. I just bit in, and I just looked at him while I was chewing, I said, ‘It’s good.’ He says, ‘Yeah’ and he took it back out of my hand. And that is—I literally said, ‘I’ll see you out there!’ and I don’t know what it was, if he was a food sharing type or what,” Cody said. “I loved it. I wasn’t a Trek fan then, so now this being the captain, the original series, the fact that we shared this random Fuddrucker’s burger in Detroit at the Fox, I feel like that has bonded us in a weird way forever. But that was my only interaction [with him].”
Cody said he’s tried to convince his wife Brandi to go to a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, but they weren’t sure they could do it without being recognized. He then tried to pitch it as they’d do it in cosplay to conceal their identities, but they ultimately never made the trip. He closed by saying he looked at the prices to meet both Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Captain Kirk (Shatner), and said it was the only time he ever thought of doing a full meet-and-greet as a fan.
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