Things are going perfectly fine for Brandi Rhodes at the start of HollywoodLife’s sneak peek at the upcoming episode of Rhodes To The Top. The Chief Branding Officer for All Elite Wrestling is about to throw “80s Night” for AEW Heels, a “community that I constructed for female fans to talk about wrestling.” However, Brandi – pregnant with her and Cody Rhodes child – gets a call she cannot ignore. “I’m having pretty intense contractions,” says Brandi in a confessional. “They’re in my back, actually, which I’ve never really felt before. So, kinda starting to wonder if this baby’s actually coming.” A chat with the midwife doesn’t really shed some light, as they’re left to wonder if this is Braxton-Hicks (false labor pains) or the real deal. Fans will have to tune in to TNT on Saturday (Oct. 16) at 10 pm EST to see what the doctor has to say.
Rhodes to the Top shows all the drama and joy involved with AEW’s power couple. As to why the couple would want to invite a camera crew in to document this high-stressful time in their lives, Brandi and Cody say that this is a chance to give back to the fans who have supported them from day one. “This is the ‘perfect storm’ moment,” Brandi says during an EXCLUSIVE interview with HollywoodLife. “We are now at a point where our personal lives are peaking — in that, we’re becoming parents and growing our family — I think it was just kind of the perfect moment for all of that stuff to be something that we share. Our [AEW] fans have been with us since day one, so they kind of feel like they were on the ground floor when everything happened. I’m sure they’re clamoring to see a little bit of a ‘behind the curtain’ to see what else is going on that maybe we don’t know about that we weren’t there for.”
“And of course, the fans of Cody and I, we’ve been together for a long time working together,” says Brandi. “In different companies and on television, our fans have always wondered when we are going to have a family, and now, we are. So, we’re pulling the curtain back on that process too.” Brandi also said that Rhodes to the Top works because they have “easy content,” where other reality television shows struggle to fill a half-hour. The Rhodes didn’t have that problem. “It became ‘what don’t we film?’ That became the issue here,” she said.
“We put the mics on us, turn the camera on, and being producers on this show, we were able to keep that true,” adds Cody. “So I’m very proud of what people are going to see. If anything. It’s a really authentic show.”
Rhodes to the Top promises to show Cody and Brandi navigating both the wrestling world and the unknown territory of becoming parents for the first time. “There’s a balance between what you see behind the scenes,” says Brandi, “and then a balance of what you see with us in the family life. As the series went on — you know, for most of it, I was pregnant. We get this kind of crescendo of having this baby, and then it’s a little bit of the cliffhanger.”
“I am hopeful for more seasons of the show, and I’m hopeful that, in those seasons, we’re able to see a little bit more of some of the family life, because like I said, we filmed so much stuff that didn’t even make it. Hopefully will be shared socially, but a lot of that stuff was with family and friends. So, we’ll see.”
Brandi also doubled down on her promise to return to the ring. “I don’t say things that I don’t mean, so I absolutely intend on making a return,” she said. “I intend on doing a lot of things. I’ve never been someone who intended on being a stay-at-home mom.”
Since Rhodes to the Top is about family, Cody revealed what he thought his father — the late wrestler, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes – would think about his son having a reality television series. “With respect to my dad, I would hope he would see a show called Rhodes to the Top and see these giant billboards popping up everywhere as his legacy. His name and his grandchild being part of it, that he would just be as entertained as we hope everyone else is.”
“I know that the story of ‘rags to riches’ that Dusty presented — being the son of a plumber. It’s very different when you look at the ‘American Nightmare.’ That’s more of a riches-to-riches story. So, I feel like he probably would have a lot of conflicts with who I’ve become, the executive that I am, but that’s always what’s been and made our family, in my opinion, very special,” says Cody. “I’m not doing a tribute act Dusty, Dustin [Runnels, Cody’s brother and fellow wrestler] isn’t doing a tribute act to me. We’re all very different. We want to be different to just bolster this thing that Dusty started. I would hope he gets a special kick out of it. I know Michelle [Rubio, Cody’s mother] — you know they were married almost forty years to see her on-screen and know how hard it is to get her on-screen. He would go nuts for “hat.”
Rhodes To The Top airs on TNT with the next two episodes airing on Saturday, October 16 at 10PM ET/PT and on Saturday, October 23 at 10PM ET/PT.