Former WWE star Brandi Rhodes recently appeared on the Wrestling Compadres Slamcast which you can listen to in full at this link. below are some interview highlights:
On Having Her Own Schedule After WWE:
It has been a ton of fun. In the early stages, we had time that we never had before, but now things are really busy so time is, like it was before, home a couple of days and then gone again, but the difference in it is being excited; and I don’t mean that I wasn’t excited being in WWE, but knowing exactly what I am doing, and knowing that I chose to do it is completely different than going to a Raw and not knowing if I was working or not, and that can be a long, depressing day going for 12 hours, and then driving for 4 hours to the next show in hopes to be working; so, at least I know that I am working when I am doing all of this.
On Who Decided to Leave WWE First:
For Smackdown, I definitely knew that I was working, which was great. For Raw, I was always one of the many, at the time, backstage correspondence, and I would try always to be like, okay, can I do this? Or, can I do this? For Monday’s, I definitely didn’t know if I was working that day, which ultimately became one of the catalysts for me to be like, I don’t know if I want to keep working here. It was me who brought it up first that I didn’t want to work for WWE anymore. Cody wasn’t even there yet as far as wanting to leave. It was more like, I had to approach him and let him know that my contract was ending, and his was no where near done. I said, hey, how would you feel if I stepped out again? I said, I’m so unhappy with not knowing if I was going to be working on a day or not. Part of my deal was, I wasn’t going to just ring announce. At the end, I got completely just the Smackdown Ring Announcer position. Which, if I could be free for other things, it’s a great job. I mean, for me, it was an easy job. It was fun, challenging at times. It’s not a bad gig at all. But, having to be on the road 5-6 days a week, just to get my one hit in was too much. There was some other different things like creatively, I was originally brought on for the Rhodes Industries gimmick that never happened. Once Stardust started happening, we could not get out of it. It was like it was a drug. We were just stuck in it and couldn’t get out. It’s funny, when people say like, you’re Ride or Die with your man, and while that sounds very heroic, that unfortunately didn’t happen. However, he sure made it easier for me to leave once he decided he wanted to leave as well. Once he left, he was just gone, and I was still there doing a PPV on the weekend. I was still working because I come from the old school mindset where if I say that I am going to show up, I’m going to show up, I don’t just not show up, as hard as it is. When I went there I told them that we needed to have a meeting, and they said, yeah, we already figured you were going to. I let them know that I wasn’t leaving necessarily because Cody left, although since he already left it had something to do with it. I still had a month and a half on my contract, and told them that if they needed me I will stay for the duration of my contract, but it’s probably better for everyone if we can find the end date and get to it.
On Having Any Animosity Towards the WWE:
For me, the people that I worked with were very good to me, so I can’t think of anyone that is associated with the company that I would walk passed if I saw them, so no, I would never snub anyone or anything like that. I don’t have a reason to. More so for me, there were some things that I felt like, and I can’t speak for Cody, but I just felt like a lot of things weren’t happened properly during a grieving situation; which, who really knows how to deal with it? I have been horrible in the grieving situation because I can’t do for him what he needs, which is to bring his father back, but I try to do things–some things good, some things not so good, you know, and I’m sure many people in the company are feeling the same thing. Some felt that ignoring it was the best thing to do, but it wasn’t. Some thought that talking about it all the time was the best thing, but that didn’t work either, so, you know, it’s hard to say whether someone handled it properly because you just don’t know how to.
