Cody Rhodes made his return to WWE at the Wrestlemania 38 PLE and defeated Seth Rollins. In an interview with Ariel Helwani for BT Sport, Cody commented on his departure from AEW:
“Unfortunately I can’t comment on the personal matter itself but it just came down to Tony Khan who I have a genuine respect for. I hope history is really kind to him because he bankrolled this entire grassroots movement that was starting at ROH and then All In happened. Then of course AEW happened and then he was able to buy that footage back. I felt like we were we were drifting apart.”
“It just genuinely felt like it was time. Can’t comment on the personal nature of it but it was nothing nefarious or scandalous… we couldn’t agree and and nothing but respect for him, his family, the infrastructure there.”
“Part of part of who I am is from those 10 years and part of who I am is from the last six. It’s just something that I don’t know if he’ll ever share what went down but it was nothing crazy, it just was rather easy decision. Hard to explain to the fans which we didn’t and hard to explain to the talent because one week I was there and the next week Ricky Starks and QT [Marshall] are bringing in bags and getting all my stuff out of the box and making the biggest scene they possibly could instead of being discreet as i asked them to. Then I was gone and my own brother, you’re thinking he’s texting me ‘I love you and I’m so proud of you’ and the thing he texted me that day was, ‘can I use your locker room’ so it’s a true older brother fashion. ‘Can I use your locker room’ yeah I guess, it’s not mine anymore but yeah sure.”
“I had a wonderful experience there and the I feel the experience had maxed out. You never want to start getting into a situation where the love goes away. I wanted to keep the love. I know Matt [Jackson], Nick [Jackson], and Kenny [Omega]. I don’t know if they sit in circles and hate on me or talk poorly about me, I hope they wouldn’t but if they don’t know, I try to tell them on a regular basis. Absolutely love those guys. Instrumental and we did it together, I helped them, they helped me so I have nothing but love and it’ll always be that way.”