Another WWE star will win the titles from Roman Reigns before Cody Rhodes finally gets it next year, says legend (Exclusive)

Cody Rhodes is yet to fulfill his promise of winning the Undisputed World Championship, and Dutch Mantell feels WWE might take a "detour" in The American Nightmare's story.

Rhodes had the fans rallying behind him heading into WrestleMania 39, but WWE still decided to put Roman Reigns over and make him retain his titles in a phenomenal main event. Thankfully for the former AEW star, he's still over with the WWE Universe as he prepares to face Brock Lesnar for the first time at Backlash.

The reported plan is for Cody to have his rematch against Roman next year at WrestleMania 40, but Dutch Manetll speculated that WWE could go down a different creative path.

While he didn't reveal any names, the legendary manager foresaw another WWE star beating Roman Reigns before Cody Rhodes ideally gets his hands on the belts. Here's what Mantell predicted on this week's Smack Talk:

"So, he's there, but I still don't think they are going to go, even in a year, I don't think. And they may do it before then, but I think WrestleMania is next year, and it's a year away, and I like that because now they can kind of pace themselves. but [I] think somebody else gets the title before Cody. You see, I've been hearing this whole time that Roman wanted to take some time off. He don't show up half the time. "I'm the champion, but I don't have to go to work. I'll just sit around here laying by the pool.'" [46:24 to 747:17]

Check out the entire episode down below:

Dutch Mantell spoke about Dusty Rhodes' journey towards the NWA World Championship, which, as history suggests, didn't come easy for The American Dream.

Dusty lost on multiple occasions and even cut his iconic "hard times" promo before ultimately winning the biggest prize in wrestling during the territorial days.

Dutch said that Cody Rhodes also had to experience what his father did and didn't have any problems with WWE seemingly delaying the 37-year-old's eventual world title victory.

The former WWE manager continued:

"I think we're going to have a detour in there. Everybody expects it to go to Cody. I think it's going to go to Cody at some point, but I think he's got a detour. Remember the whole interview he did, 'hard times,' that was Dusty's. Now Cody's got to go through those 'hard times' too. So he's like, if he wants to finish the story, he's got to get through the 'hard times' like his daddy did, and then if they take their time with Cody, he's over now. But he'll be super over. I mean, he'd be in that rarified air that he's over." [45:40 to 46:24]

Cody Rhodes cut a powerful babyface promo ahead of his Backlash match against Brock Lesnar

From being forcefully portrayed as Stardust during his previous WWE run, Cody Rhodes certainly has come a long way in his career. The superstar has looked great since returning to WWE, emerging as one of the best promo-cutters in the entire company.

Cody did it again on the go-home SmackDown episode of Backlash, where he spoke at length about his newfound rivalry with Brock Lesnar.

Cody Rhodes called Lesnar a "gatekeeper" of the kingdom he wants to build in WWE and vowed to beat The Beast Incarnate when they meet at Backlash. The former AEW TNT Champion even mentioned what Arn Anderson told him back in the day and, using the power of words, gave a much-needed explanation of his feud with Lesnar.

Do you think Cody defeats Brock in Puerto Rico? Let us know your predictions in the comments section below.

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