Cody Rhodes sends heartwarming message marking a week as WWE champion

Cody Rhodes has delivered a heartfelt message ahead of this week's edition of RAW. The 38-year-old defeated Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania XL Night Two to become the new Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.

Cody Rhodes was finally able to dethrone The Tribal Chief at WrestleMania XL one week ago today. On this past Friday's edition of WWE SmackDown, both LA Knight and AJ Styles won Triple Threat matches each. The two stars will battle each other next on SmackDown to determine Cody Rhodes' challenger at WWE Backlash next month.

Ahead of tomorrow night's edition of WWE RAW, Cody Rhodes took to his official X (formerly Twitter) account to respond to a WWE fan. The fan noted that there were supporters of The Bloodline who were upset Rhodes had become champion. He reacted by saying the "Bloodline stans" challenged him as well, but in his own way, he has love for them too. You can check out his post by clicking here.

"😂 The build to Mania’ was such an intense ride and the bloodline stans challenged me. I met that challenge - so in my own way I got love for them," he wrote.

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Former WWE writer claims the promotion needs a strong babyface to defeat Cody Rhodes

Vince Russo believes WWE has an issue that could negatively impact Cody Rhodes' reign as champion.

Speaking on Sportskeeda Wrestling's UnSKripted show, Russo noted that Rhodes will likely not be dropping the title to a heel anytime soon after spending a couple of years trying to become champion. Russo added there is not a strong babyface to challenge for the title either and it could cause Rhodes' title reign to be underwhelming.

"Here's the only thing you do if you are them. And bro, they have made so many mistakes that they don't have the luxury of doing these things. Here is the only thing you could do. The fact that he was fninishing the story for a year, a year, a year, there ain't no heel that is going to beat him. The only thing you could hang your hat on is if there is a strong babyface, and you can create like the question, 'Okay, we know, we are pretty sure Cody (Rhodes) is not going to lose.' But how are they going to get out of this? But they don't even have a strong babyface bro to do that with," said Russo. [From 12:13 onwards]

You can check out the video below:

LA Knight defeated AJ Styles in a singles match at WrestleMania XL and the two stars had a confrontation after this past Friday's SmackDown went off the air. It will be interesting to see which veteran emerges victorious on WWE SmackDown this week to become Cody Rhodes' first challenger for the title.