00:00Cody, thank you for joining me.
00:04It's become a pattern.
00:06We just saw what happened at Sunday Night's main event.
00:10You weren't able to pull the trigger on someone that you care about.
00:16What happened?
00:19You're not wrong.
00:20I don't know if I love the phrasing, couldn't pull the trigger, but I could cite mercy.
00:27Sure, I've heard that, but that's an excuse, and I'm not here to do that.
00:32I don't want to give you any excuses.
00:37I've called you QB1.
00:39There's a lot of people in the company that refer to you as QB1.
00:44I'm proud that we have someone like you that's representing WWE.
00:49The problem is it seems there's no longer a team.
00:54The players are gone.
00:56Remember back at WrestleMania when you finally finished the story and the ring filled up with people?
01:01You were on people's shoulders celebrating.
01:04If you take a look back at that picture, all of those people have stabbed you in the back.
01:12And it seems that would come with the territory as the champion, right?
01:17Maybe I should have seen it coming.
01:19I mean, a lifetime growing up in this industry.
01:24Maybe I should have beat them to the punch.
01:26But whether that's Sami Zayn, the greatest of all time, John Cena, Kevin Owens, or Randy Orton,
01:34everybody, myself included, gets a bit seduced by the biggest title in the game.
01:41Maybe I'm arrogant or naive, thinking that with me as champion, it would have gone differently.
01:51But I appreciate and in a way I almost disagree with that's not the end of QB1 because that's not
01:59the only team.
02:00You know, you're the voice of WWE, this very large team.
02:06And it's not just the gentleman fighting over the WWE championship.
02:12You know what's going to happen again, right?
02:15You're going to be in the ring with Randy Orton.
02:19And, Cody, when you look in his eyes and you're standing just a few feet away from him, what are
02:27you going to do?
02:30You know what I'm not immune to, Michael, is every week, every week, whether it's in the locker room, whether
02:39it's in the arena, whether it's online, the discussion about my morality.
02:44Will he? Won't he? Is there a different path? Is there a darker path?
02:48Is he going to turn towards that direction?
02:51Let me ask you, do you know something?
02:54Does anyone know something that I don't know?
02:57Well, because all this success that I've had, which is beyond my wildest dreams, has been me.
03:03This guy sitting right here, the guy who came back at WrestleMania 38, I had experimented and disrupted in the
03:09pro wrestling and sports entertainment space more than anyone save one, and maybe that's Mr. Heyman.
03:14I knew who I was.
03:17And I was uncompromised.
03:20And uncompromised got me back-to-back Royal Rumble wins.
03:25Uncompromised got me two victories over Brock Lesnar.
03:27Who can say that?
03:28Uncompromised got me to defeat a champion who hadn't been beat in four years.
03:33And then we go to SummerSlam against the greatest of all time, my mentor John Cena.
03:37And I didn't ask for the torch.
03:39I took it.
03:41And then this year at WrestleMania,
03:43I defeated Randy Orton no matter how I looked when I walked out of there.
03:49So I'm amused at the fact that I need to change.
03:52But credit to your question, that situation is going to come up again.
03:58And when it does, I'm not going to make the same decision I made at Sunday night's main event.
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