John Cena passed him the torch, but that wasn’t the most important convo Cody Rhodes had on Raw

There was a quick exchange between Cody Rhodes and a former United States champion on the Mar. 6 Raw that should prove to be very important to WrestleMania 39.

Rhodes also shared a moment last night with John Cena. That was cool, too.

Actually, the exchange Cody & the Face Who Used To Run The Place shared right after Cena introduced the 2022 Royal Rumble winner kind of served the same purpose as the other moment I’m referring to*. It signaled to the audience that Rhodes is The Guy, and that supporting him in his quest to “finish the story” and win the WWE & Universal titles from Roman Reigns doesn’t mean another story we love is going to be short-changed as a result.

What was the other one? It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot (especially if you ran to the bathroom or grabbed a snack) during the set-up for next week’s Bronson Reed vs. Elias match. When Rick Boogs is talking to Reed, farther in the background we see an animated discussion between Cody and Kevin Owens.

Doesn’t look they’re bonding over tales of KO’s mentor and Cody’s dad Dusty. Rather, it looks to me like the American Nightmare is picking up where Sami Zayn left off earlier in the show — trying to convince Owens to join their fight against The Bloodline.

The end of the episode, where Rhodes ran in to save Sami from an Usos beatdown, tells us that Cody didn’t have much more luck changing Owens’ mind than Zayn. At least so far.

But WWE took a big step towards officially tying Rhodes’ WrestleMania story to KO & Sami’s, and giving us a big ending for WrestleMania Night One they can use a number of different ways to enhance the close of Night Two.

When getting the rub from a 16 time WWE World champ is the second biggest thing you do on Raw, I’d say you’re doing pretty well.

* If I were in a more cyncial mood, I’d say WWE is taking out ensure against a fan backlash. But rooting for all these babyfaces has me feeling downright earnest, I guess.