WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes spoke with Marvel.com this past week. Here are some highlights:

Marvel.com: You tried to bring a bit of your comic book fan roots to your WrestleMania gear, didn’t you?

Cody Rhodes: Yeah, my jacket was supposed to be more Mister Sinister themed, but as the designer got to work on it, it became more “Assassin’s Creed” themed, which was also fine by me. At one point there was this huge diamond in the waistband but it was too much, a bit too close to the Sinister vibe. We could never get the jewel to work, but the diamond is still there in rough leather form if you look closely.

Marvel.com: The way you beat Rey was a classic villain move, which seems very appropriate given how much fans have compared you to Doctor Doom. Is that character a big influence?

Cody Rhodes: Yeah, that’s the funny thing—Big Show calls me “Victor Von Doom” and I take that as such a big compliment because Doom is such an iconic villain. Even when he’s not used in these epic crossovers or doesn’t get the big win, Doom is still a formidable foe who’s among the elite villains in the Marvel Universe.

I have all these influences without realizing them myself sometimes. For example, I really wanted to do a lot of mic work along the way to WrestleMania and as I was cutting promos I felt very comfortable in the suit and tie, but then one week decided I wanted to add the mask. That addition made it all pop and reminded me of characters like Doom and The Red Skull, guys who are all business but hide something hideously wrong with them.

Marvel.com: So did you ever think about a less transparent mask, to complete the Doom look?

Cody Rhodes: Well, here’s a little known fact, because in the world of entertainment things do get misconstrued: one thing that legitimately happened was my broken nose. It was a horrible thing that ended up being a great thing in terms of my career. I had an idea where I wanted to take it but I looked online and saw Rip Hamilton, from the Detroit Pistons. He had the exact mask I wanted—I even went to the same doctor who molded his and had it cast to my face, allowing you to still see my face without obscuring my features. It actually was much more clear when I started but WWE fogged it up a bit, which makes it look cool especially when the lights bounce off.

Marvel.com: Let’s end this with wrestling, since we’ve got the Extreme Rules PPV this Sunday. What’s new in WWE for Cody Rhodes?

Cody Rhodes: I think WrestleMania was a statement but also an opportunity. What I did was say to everyone, our fans included, that “I’m really into this gig, let me have more.” I’ve learned that you have to be your biggest self-promoter and I hope that in the next year, as we move forward to WrestleMania XXVIII in Miami, that I can get in that World title hunt. There [are] not [many] bigger [stars] than Rey Mysterio and I beat him, so I’d love to be competing for the World Heavyweight Championship. Along the way there’s a lot of guys I’d like to compete with too; I’ve been telling guys for time now that I’d really like to compete with Kane. He’s such a fixture of the WWE Universe and I’d love to give him the same treatment I gave Rey Mysterio. The old is going and the new is coming—I really like that.