Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Do you remember the faction Cosmic Wasteland, featuring Cody ‘Stardust’ Rhodes and the Ascension? You may have forgotten them owing to their short period of time together in the WWE. Don’t worry, we’re on hand to remind you about them.
There are factions that are on fire from the very beginning and then there are those that quickly fizzle out. A while ago, I touched on several factions that were here and then suddenly were forgotten about in a blink of an eye. One group that wasn’t mentioned with all of those flops…was the faction led by ‘Stardust’ aka Cody Rhodes in 2015. It consisted of him as the leader and had Viktor and Konner of the tag team The Ascension.
Collectively, this band of face painted misfits were known as Cosmic Wasteland. This faction, didn’t exactly light the WWE on fire like say D-X or even the Nexus did briefly. As a matter of fact, they didn’t do much of anything at all. Aside from cutting very bizarre promos in smoked out, dark rooms and sitting at ringside looking like they were going to do something dastardly, it simply never materialized.
There were several factors which led to that, but we will eventually get there. The idea of Cosmic Wasteland had potential, good potential to do something on a bigger level. Here, on one hand, you had Cody Rhodes transformed into a psychotic villain who looked to the stars for guidance. He was accompanied by the Ascension, who were at one time a very big deal down in NXT. While Stardust scouted the likes of Neville, Cesaro and even actor Stephen Amell from their ringside seats, nothing really came of anything.
Cosmic Wasteland did not dominate the babyfaces with multiple three on one sneak attacks. They didn’t instill fear into their opponents. In some spots, Cosmic Wasteland wasn’t even together most of the time. As I said earlier, there were several factors why this faction never truly panned out. Some of it can be blamed on Vince McMahon and his creative writing team. Some of it can also be blamed on Cody himself.
The bottom line was, not everybody was giving their best foot forward for the gimmick. Cody never really wanted to play the Stardust character to begin with. He felt it was way too similar to his older brother’s Goldust gimmick. Seeing that this idea was the brain child of Stephanie McMahon, Vince was all on board with it. Cody made the best out of the situation by pitching different things the Stardust character did unlike Goldust.
Cody was under the impression that the Stardust gimmick had a shelf life of about three months, before he was turned back to being Cody Rhodes. Those three months lasted over two years. Cody admits it was one of the deciding factors for him to call it quits with the WWE. Before we get to Cody’s departure, ideas were bandied about to try and help elevate Stardust to another level. One of those ideas was to form Cosmic Wasteland and run roughshod throughout all of space and time.
It was a great opportunity for Stardust to lead a faction and also a great opportunity for The Ascension to get back on track after months of jobbing out to every other tag team in the company. Rumors were swirling that Cody wanted to add other members to Cosmic Wasteland like Wade Barrett, Neville and his wife Brandi, who was used as WWE ring announcer Eden Stiles, all of which were turned down. Cody’s heart was simply not into the project as perhaps he should’ve been.
Stardust was a stagnant gimmick and he knew it. According to Cody, their were plans to have him wrestle a rematch against Stephen Amell at Hell in a Cell and Stardust would put his character on the line. Stardust would of course lose and return to being a new version of Cody. It never occurred. Ultimately, Cody saw opportunity outside of WWE and asked for his release. It was granted and Cosmic Wasteland became just that: a barren, uninhabitable wasteland.