Drew McIntyre as the foil Cody Rhodes’s next chapter

Cody Rhodes may need a new dance party heading into the next chapter of his story and Drew McIntyre fits that role perfectly.

This past Saturday at SummerSlam Cody Rhodes finished the chapter in his story with Brock Lesnar, leaving the question, what’s next for the American Nightmare?

WWE has made it abundantly clear, the goal for next year’s WrestleMania is to have a rematch of the main event from this past year, Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns II. We are still 8 months out from the ‘grandest stage of all’, making it too early to start that feud back up just yet.

Cody Rhodes needs to buy himself time until his huge feud, and a rivalry with Drew McIntyre is the perfect way to do that. At SummerSlam, McIntyre lost a highly contested match against Intercontinental Champion Gunther, leaving him without a clear path for his future as well. On his way up the ramp, an enraged Drew McIntyre seemed destined to turn heel, making a phenomenal next opponent for Cody Rhodes.

The parallels between Rhodes and McIntyre’s careers are almost uncanny. Both men were pushed once as WWE’s next big superstar in the mid-2010s, then to find themselves being tortured on awful mid-card acts. Both men knew they had to reinvent themselves in other promotions to make it as a WWE main eventer one day.

That should just be the starting baseline for this feud. Both men, although in separate companies, carried their promotion through the global pandemic and want to get back to that true main event level, this time with fans in the crowd. Leaving only one option, go through each other to rise to the top once again.

Drew McIntyre has also accomplished what Cody has longed for ever since returning over a year ago, holding the WWE championship. McIntyre should want to beat Cody because he thinks that he never got the title reign he deserved in front of fans, and he will beat anyone in his path just to get that opportunity once again. Cody should want to beat Drew because he needs to know he can beat someone that has held that belt recently, to make himself believe he can do it a second time around against Roman Reigns.

Both men have such a storied history with each other, which even included winning the tag team championships in both man’s first WWE run. If the only goal is to buy Cody time for WWE, they need to tell the story of Rhodes and McIntyre. Both men nearly followed the same path in their careers, but one since returning to the WWE has accomplished something the other one hasn’t, winning the WWE Championship.

Cody Rhodes can claim he is “on his way”, but not until he puts an old friend, who also happens to be a former WWE champion behind him.