Dax Harwood Thinks Video Package Would Show All Of Cody Rhodes' Needed Adversity

Cody Rhodes' loss against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39 has firmly settled into the wrestling rearview. Some fans have taken up the age-old "let it play out" approach to "The American Nightmare's" big loss, while others think Rhodes needs to face more adversity on the road to the championship. 

However, on a recent episode of "FTR with Dax," current AEW World Tag Team Champion Dax Harwood took issue with this thinking.

"There's a lot of people that have said, 'Oh, let the story play out,' and I usually am one of those people. But I will say this, SummerSlam 1993 [...] the hottest new babyface in your territory was Lex Luger," Harwood said. "This whole campaign about going on the Lex Express. slamming Yokozuna, and he won by countout. Imagine if people would've said, 'Well, it's SummerSlam, WrestleMania 10 is around the corner, let the story play out.' [...] We let the story play out [...] and it killed Lex Luger."

Harwood's comparison of Rhodes to Luger in 1993 isn't new, but it's arguably more pertinent following Rhodes' loss. It remains to be seen if Rhodes' loss will see the same results for his popularity as Luger's countout victory.

For now, it looks as though Cody Rhodes is pivoting into a program against Brock Lesnar. The feud began after Lesnar beat down Rhodes on the "WWE Raw" after WrestleMania. Some have seen the beatdown from Lesnar as another piece of adversity for Rhodes' journey. 

Harwood, however, thinks Rhodes has seen enough adversity to have justified a win against Reigns.

"He tore his pec, and thousands of people in the arena saw it. Hundreds of thousands saw it on the pay-per-view. I don't know if you can overcome any more adversity than that," he said. "If we only want to keep it storyline driven, just show a one-minute package of his prior WWE career and what he had to overcome there. Before he left, the man was Stardust. Show how he's overcome, made himself into a main event-level star. And then, have him come out on top. It's okay for the good guy to win sometimes."