WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes serving as Week 12 ESPN College GameDay celebrity guest picker

WWE Champion ‘The American Nightmare’ Cody Rhodes will be the celebrity guest picker on ESPN’s College GameDay during Week 12.

Rhodes, whose real name is Cody Runnels, grew up in the Atlanta area and has been a lifelong Georgia Bulldogs fan. He will join the crew in Athens for the blockbuster matchup between UGA and Tennessee.

Rhodes will be the second WWE superstar to join the panel this season, as Sheamus joined the GameDay crew in Dublin for Georgia Tech vs. Florida State. He picked the Yellow Jackets to win outright, and they did. We’ll see if Rhodes can produce a similar outcome for his Bulldogs.

The WWE Champion joins Pat McAfee, who has done work with WWE in the past in-ring and at the commentary table over the past several years, along with the rest of the College GameDay crew in Rece Davis, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban, and Desmond Howard.

Both teams are coming off different outcomes in Week 11. Georgia was upset on the road at Ole Miss, 28-10, and Tennessee beat Mississippi State 33-14 to stay near the top of the SEC. The outcome of Saturday’s meeting between the Bulldogs and Volunteers could ultimately decide the fate of both teams in terms of the College Football Playoff race.

This will be the third time the Bulldogs have hosted College GameDay. They previously hosted the marquee pregame show against Alabama and again vs. Texas, where Georgia eventually split those two games. It’s the 39th time the Bulldogs have hosted the show, the sixth-most of any team in GameDay history. They’re 18-20 in those games.

Georgia has not lost to Tennessee since 2016, and the Bulldogs have since taken the all-time series lead over the Vols 28-23-2.

This game should be looked at as a must-win for both sides. A Georgia loss would give them three losses. For the Vols, it could mean the difference in them making the SEC Championship game.