Cody Rhodes made his big return to WWE last year at WrestleMania 38, but a few months later his momentum was halted when Cody got taken out of action due to injury. The American Nightmare got the opportunity to make another big return on Saturday night when he entered the Royal Rumble and wrestled in his first match since June of 2022.
Saturday proved to be Cody’s night as he won the Royal Rumble and earned the chance to challenge for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania. Cody Rhodes recently spoke to Ariel Helwani of BT Sport about his road to recovery and he revealed that he wasn’t officially cleared until the day of the Royal Rumble.
“I went to the Performance Center, I remember I made a joke in AEW about hip toss class, I did a hip toss class. Thank God for it, actually, because I worked with…I won’t say one guy’s name because I don’t want to blow his spot up, but I worked with Carmelo Hayes. Joe Gacy was the other guy, I don’t know why I’m not crediting him. They were rough with me, they were rugged. It let me feel what I need to feel to know where to get. I can’t wait for their opportunities to come because they are incredible wrestlers and incredible stars. That experience, I got partially cleared through that. I was able to do what I want, my wind was good, I was training heavily with PT [physical therapy] and an off-site team that my wife got for me.
I didn’t really get fully cleared until today. Looked good, and everything was great, but they still had to get in there, grab it, feel on it. That’s a wild situation, when you’ve been announced for the Royal Rumble, you’ve seen your shirts and seen the young fans. I think it was more of a formality than anything, but it still had me kind of shaking. WWE has been very good to me medically, very good. I’ll be in PT for the rest of my life, though. I’ve been there every week and now I have to just do preventive stuff. It changed everything about how I’ve trained.”
H/T Fightful
