Cody Rhodes Talks Heel Turn, 'I Just Don't Have Any Interest' Following WWE Rumors

Despite talking about a potential heel turn quite often in recent months, Cody Rhodes isn't planning on doing it anytime soon.

On the latest episode of his What Do You Wanna Talk About? podcast featuring Becky Lynch (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News), Rhodes said "I just don't have any interest" when talking about potentially playing a bad guy in WWE.

"I have the complete opposite outlook," the undisputed WWE champion explained. "On all these metrics, on all of these measurables, I just don't have any interest in being a bad guy. I just don't know if I could do it. I don't know if my heart would be in it."

The lead up to his match with John Cena at SummerSlam, in particular, led a lot of fans to assume WWE was setting up Rhodes for a heel turn. Most of it was based around people believing the American Nightmare was intentionally wearing attire similar to The Rock, who started the year trying to get Rhodes to "sell his soul" to the Final Boss.

While Rhodes was definitely playing to the internet crowd, SummerSlam was actually just set up to turn Cena back into a babyface.

Rhodes did talk a lot leading up to SummerSlam about what he would do as a heel character, but he was always very intentional to say that it wasn't something he was looking to do.

One thing that a lot of people within the internet wrestling community ignore when they want to push for someone to turn heel is, there should be a good reason to do it.

Cena's turn at Elimination Chamber seemed like a good idea on paper, but outside of a great moment when it actually happened, it didn't work that well. He even acknowledged some of the issues with the benefit of hindsight.

In the case of Rhodes, there's no indication that the crowd is turning on him. When Hulk Hogan famously joined the nWo at Bash at the Beach in 1996, he was already being booed by the audience.

Steve Austin's turn at WrestleMania 17 was completely misguided because, by his own admission, it was a forced move that he pushed for even though he had just returned after being out of action for nearly a full year due to injuries.

Given how few dates Cena has remaining before his retirement at the end of the year, Rhodes is the No. 1 long-term babyface on the SmackDown roster. Unless there is someone ready to step into that role, it makes no sense to even consider turning him.