Cody Rhodes spoke with Ariel Helwani of BT Sport following his win in the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble match. Rhodes revealed that he wasn’t 100% medically cleared until yesterday. He also opened up about how much this win meant to him and where it ranks for him professionally. You can read highlights of his comments below:
On winning the men’s Rumble match: “You don’t expect to hear it, right? Just to add your name to that list and, it hasn’t hit me. I got a day, I got the signing tomorrow and stuff. But the thing I like the most is to connect with the audience. And sometimes you don’t and sometimes you do, and sometimes they get mad at you, whatever it might be. I got to connect with them and I — if you don’t like emotional Cody interviews, I apologize, but I just I’m very blessed for that, very lucky.”
Where this ranks in his top professional moments: “Oh, this is — I’ll tell you my top three wrestling moments right now, because I was going over them. Number one is this. I wanted this. I watched Randy do it, I was in the ring with him when he eliminated Triple H, and I wanted to be him. This is over 10 years ago. I thought it’d be sooner, it didn’t happen that way, but this was number one.
“Number two was my return to WrestleMania, and number three was All In, because All In was like a Woodstock for wrestling. And I feel like all those people were here tonight too, you know? Like, try it all, right? You like this, you like that, I love wrestling, I love pro wrestling and I bring pro wrestling with me everywhere. And just, this is definitely number one for me. I can’t think of anything, I’m gonna go home and be like what about this huge moment that I forgot about. But no, this is number one.”
When he was finally cleared: “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 gosh 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. But 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 — I got partially cleared through that. I was able to do what I want, my wind was good, 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. So you know, 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. But 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.
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