Cody Rhodes made his return to in-ring action on Saturday night at the WWE Royal Rumble after being sidelined since June due to a torn pec that he suffered while training days before his Hell in a Cell match against Seth Rollins.
Rhodes won the 30-Man Royal Rumble from the last spot in the bout, earning himself a WrestleMania 39 main event match.
While speaking to Ariel Helwani of BT Sport, Rhodes confirmed reports that he had been training at the Performance Center with Joe Gacy and Carmelo Hayes leading up to his return. He claimed that he had not been fully medically cleared until the day of the Rumble.
“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 was that I got partially cleared through that. I was able to do what I wanted, my wind was good, and I was training heavily with PT and an off-site team that my wife got for me. I didn’t really get fully cleared until today. I was…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 and stuff. 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. And 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,” Rhodes stated.
A few other highlights from the interview:
– Rhodes said his top three favorite moments of his wrestling career are winning the Royal Rumble, his WrestleMania 38 return, and All In.
– He called his torn pec injury “embarrassing” because he suffered the injury while on a roll in WWE by simply doing a bench press.
-Bruce Prichard and Nick Khan were two people who kept checking on him throughout his recovery.
Check out the full interview here:
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit BT Sport with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
