Cody Rhodes discusses storyline pitch involving The Rock's daughter

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Cody Rhodes was involved in one of 2025’s most talked about storylines in WWE, which involved Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wanting his soul. Wrestling fans know the angle never completely played out with Cody keeping his soul, and John Cena instead turning heel before going on to win Rhodes’ Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 41. But fans almost saw a very different version of events, Rhodes revealed during a recent episode of his What Do You Wanna Talk About? podcast. According to The American Nightmare, he had an idea of giving up his soul to The Rock’s daughter instead of to The Final Boss. Rhodes made this revelation while speaking with The Rock’s daughter Simone Johnson, who was his guest on the podcast. At the time of when the “soul” angle took place, Simon was serving as NXT’s general manager under the name “Ava.” “When The Final Boss asked me for my soul, I thought, you know what would’ve been funny, is to relent and give my soul, but not to him —this is at a time when you were the NXT general manager — to you,” Rhodes said to Simone. “I thought, ‘That’s got legs. I’ll never say a word again. She’ll speak.’” “I think we would’ve crushed that,” Johnson said in response. Rhodes continued: “We would’ve crushed that. People are often like, ‘You don’t want to be a bad guy.’ I’m open to all things. Whatever is the best. I thought that would’ve been a real good spin.” “I would’ve loved to have done that,” Johnson said. Rhodes then asked his guest how she thinks her father would have felt about the idea. “I think he would’ve been all for it,” she replied. “Absolutely.” Cody then said that he was surprised that she never brought up the pitch to The Rock. “I don’t think it ever came up, because I think he was beating you up, asking you for your soul,” she said. “I don’t think I knew he was coming back that day. I had no context of what the promo would be. I just saw it and was like, ‘Soul is crazy.’” Rhodes closed out the topic by hinting that maybe the idea could still have legs sometime in the future. “I think we might have had something. Who knows, we might still have something. I thought it was such a fun spin. My soul goes to you, and we would’ve wreaked havoc. Sold out every night. That was our idea. It never happened.” What do you think, Cagesiders? Would you have liked seeing Ava become part of the storyline with Cody and The Rock? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Cody Rhodes has revealed there was once a very different plan for his soul storyline with The Rock, one that […]