Cody Rhodes says WWE return was a big gamble, had ‘a good gig’ at AEW
When Cody Rhodes returned to WWE in 2022, he knew he was taking a really big gamble.
The decision ended up paying off for Rhodes, who has been one of the top stars in WWE ever since coming back. But just looking back on the risk that he took brings up anxiety for Rhodes. He reflected on the situation while appearing on a new episode of Undertaker’s Six Feet Under podcast, saying it might have been an even bigger gamble than when he left WWE in 2016. Rhodes feels he had “a good gig” in AEW — and there was no guarantee that a WWE return would work.
“The situation, looking back at it now, so many things were happening,” Rhodes said. “I had two television shows that were on Discovery now, but Warner Media programming. I had to juggle that, I had to really weigh it out. Obviously, opportunity is amazing, but I had to really weigh it out. Is this a mistake, right? They didn’t see it the first time. They saw a little of it, but they didn’t see it. Is this the biggest mistake ever? You think the first time leaving is the biggest mistake ever. Coming back, my fear was like, this could be the biggest gamble of all. I had a good gig. I had, contrary to what you hear, and you guys know how the internet likes to internet, but I had a good gig. I had an executive job. I loved the Bullet Club guys. But evolving and moving myself forward, it was just a lot to weigh out.
“And again, it could have been a big — had I gone out there and belly flopped in the pool, like, it wouldn’t have hurt WWE at all. It would have been, ‘See, he wasn’t. He was Little League all along.’ You know? Now I’m getting anxiety over it now, and it’s over. We already did it, you know? We’re good, we’re good.”
Rhodes has had two WWE Championship reigns since being brought back to the company. This weekend, he heads into the men’s Royal Rumble match looking to earn another World title shot after recently dropping the WWE Championship to Drew McIntyre.
One of the biggest reasons Rhodes has succeeded in his return is that he’s been presented as a different version of himself than we saw during his first WWE run.
“I was presented as if I never existed there before, in a way,” he said on Six Feet Under. “Like, I was presented as this fully polished, ready, if you didn’t know, and you were a young kid watching, you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s so cool. Like, you jumped right in. And if you did, you were rewarded for knowing the journey.”
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.