WWE: Cody Rhodes on Travis Scott’s Slap Being Him “Hit Me With the Power of a Thousand Suns”, Triple H on John Cena’s Heel Turn Being His Idea & How It Wasn’t Hard to Convince Cena to Turn Heel, More News

Apr 1, 2025

Cody Rhodes Comments on Travis Scott’s Slap Being Him “Hit Me With the Power of a Thousand Suns”

As noted before, Cody Rhodes suffered a black eye and ruptured eardrum injury from a legit hard slap spot by Travis Scott during John Cena’s heel turn and attack on Rhodes segment at this past March’s WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 event.

Complex held a recent interview with Rhodes. One of the topics discussed included Rhodes’ thoughts about the stiff slap Scott gave to him during their segment at WWE’s event and the possibility of him giving a receipt to Scott if he shows up again in WWE.

“The next day after the incident, I told everyone, ‘He didn’t hit me.’ I didn’t realize there was a fan video circulating of him hitting me with the power of a thousand suns and the noise deafening. And then I had a Tommy Boy situation where the entire side of my face was black and blue and I kept saying, ‘Oh no, I’m good. I’m good.’ And then I had a little flutter in the eardrum because it popped. Again, I’m a weirdo, this is going to sound so strange, and I apologize to your viewers and your listeners, but man, that’s wrestling. You know what I’m saying? Beat me up. I’m going to beat you up. That’s wrestling. I am not mad so much, but I am looking, and my eyes are open for what we inevitably, what we’ll call a receipt. If Travis Scott ever makes his way back into the WWE frey, maybe there’s a receipt for Travis.”

Triple H Comments on John Cena’s Heel Turn Being His Idea & How It Wasn’t Hard to Convince Cena to Turn Heel

As noted before, this past March’s WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 event featured John Cena making a surprise heel turn after attacking Cody Rhodes and aligning himself with the “Final Boss” The Rock.

The Daily Mail held a recent interview with WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque. One of the topics discussed included Levesque’s thoughts about if the idea for Cena’s heel turn was on his to-do wish list for his plans for Cena’s retirement tour in WWE.

“‘For me? For sure. You always want to approach things like the ‘what ifs’. You have a blank slate and John’s amazing.
John comes in and goes “I’m gonna come in for that year and then I’m gonna be done. Whatever we want to do in there, let’s go.” So you begin to have those conversations.
What is the absolute biggest possible thing we can do? And then work with the reality of what everything is. People forget about that. All these people are people. Reality, jobs, all these other things. John is wrapping up a movie now.
But that opportunity is the biggest thing we can do. Would have been very easy – and I’m sure John, at some point, will talk about this – would have been very easy for him to come in here and say, have us roll through all these dates, I’ll do my greatest hits – everyone is going to love it.
I’m going to wave at the fans, kiss babies, sign autographs. Do the same stuff I’ve been doing for 20-plus years and everybody is going to love it, it’s going to be great.
Or… we can blow people’s minds and go in a different direction and make the whole world go “wait, what just happened?”‘

Levesque also gave his thoughts about if it was hard to convince Cena of the idea for a heel turn.

“No. It was a conversation – without getting into the details – it was a conversation that when it was brought up, everybody… I think in John’s mind he was like “wow, I didn’t think you were going to say that. I love it.”
It’s a challenge to him. John’s not a complacent person, right? I think he would have done it and he would have done it happily and he would have done it for fans, but I think there would have been a piece of him that would have been like “alright, I’m just going to go through my day here.”
This now, I guess it’s no different than if a Hollywood role for any actor where they say “we’d like you to play the character you’ve played in 20 other movies pretty much and just do the same thing.”
It’s like “OK.” At a certain point in time they come and they give you something way off something you’ve ever done and you’re like “Wow, alright, that’s a challenge I’ve never done before.”
That energises you and gets your creatives juices going and excites you, it lights you up as a performer. This is going to be special because John is lit up about it. We’re lit up about it. It’s going to be incredible.’

WWE News & Notes

WWE announced that they have recently partnered with Clash of Clans mobile game for WrestleMania 41. It was announced that Cody Rhodes, The Undertaker, Rhea Ripley, Becky Lynch and more WWE Supsertars will featured in the mobile game. It was also announced that this new deal also includes an “enhanced match sponsorship” at WrestleMania 41.

As noted before, Warner Bros Discovery has been in recent negotiations with Ketchup Entertainment for an all-rights acquisition deal for their shelved Coyote vs. Acme live action and animated film featuring John Cena among its cast. Deadline reported that WBD has closed the sale of the film to Ketchup for $50 million. It was reported that Ketchup also purchased the distribution for the recently released Daffy Duck and Porky Pig animated film The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. In regards to the Coyote vs. Acme film, it was reported that this film is now currently scheduled to be released in theaters in 2026.

WWE recently filed new trademarks for “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” “What’s Your Story? w/ Steph McMahon,” “Six Feet Under With The Undertaker,” “The Raw Recap,” “WWE Moment Immortal” and “WWE Immortal Moment” for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

As noted before, WWE recently changed the start time for their NXT Stand & Deliver 2025 event on April 19th in Las Vegas, Nevada from its previous start time of 11:30 AM local time to a new start time of 9:30AM local time. Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported in a recent Q&A article that his sources stated that the reaction from NXT talent over the changed start time was one of unhappiness and dreading the call time for this year’s event. Sapp reported that due to the new earlier start time, this means talent will now have to arrive well before sunrise for warm-ups, rehearsals, and production checks that day for the show.

WWE recently revealed the next match in their on-going countdown of their Top 50 matches in WrestleMania history. The 17th spot was the WWE Championship match of Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle (c) from WrestleMania XIX.

WWE also recently released one new video to their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full November 27, 1995 episode of WCW Nitro.

WWE also recently released four new videos to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a tag team match of Paige & AJ Lee vs. The Bella Twins (Brie & Nikki Bella) from WWE WrestleMania 31. The second new video was the full WWE UK UK Rampage ’92 event. The third new video was a “The story of The Undertaker vs. CM Punk at WrestleMania 29.” The fourth new video was the full WWE WrestleMania XXIV event.

WWE also recently released one new video to their NXT Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was the full May 15, 2014 episode of WWE NXT.

In a recent interview with the 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff podcast, WWE Hall of Fame inductee Lex Luger revealed that he recently got married. Luger stated “I got married. For 17 years, I didn’t date. No women in my life at all. And I met this girl last year, Robin, and we started hanging out a little bit and, you know, sparks started flying a little bit. And so we were going to elope but we ended up…Pastor Steve, you’ve heard about him. He was in my hotel room and we got down and prayed and I got saved. April 23, 2006. And he ordained me about nine years later. And now, he married us Friday night on the back patio of our house. Just a few people there. And we didn’t want to do the big wedding thing, but it was really special. And to have Pastor Steve there for my salvation, my ordination, my marriage; like, the trifecta.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Byron Scott’s Fast Break podcast, former WWE wrestler Kelly Kelly, real name Barbie Blank, gave her thoughts about the origin of her “Kelly Kelly” ring name in WWE. Blank stated “I wanted Barbie. I wanted Barbie so bad, but it’s trademarked. They gave me a list of ten or 15 names and Kelly was on there. ‘Oh, I like Kelly. That’s cute.’ She was a Barbie. There was a Kelly doll. It was Kelly. Then, I debut, and the next week it was Kelly Kelly. Vince, who knows the way he thinks, but he had seen a ‘Cheers’ episode, and I guess the girl bartender is Kelly. It was before my time. There was a song, ‘Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.’ That’s how Kelly Kelly became.” Blank also gave her thoughts about how she felt when she received the ring name. Blank stated “Nobody had two of the same name, so it would stand out.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)