Cody Rhodes made his return to WWE at the Wrestlemania 38 PLE and defeated Seth Rollins. During an appearance on The Ringer podcast, Cody talked about his entrance at the event:
“I was hoping they’d be happy as a crowd, or at least yay, boo, whatever, just some sort of energy and feeling. But I really didn’t want to put any expectations on it, and I never looked out there. I never walked the ramp. I never got to see the crowd. They put me in my sweats and I didn’t see anything. So coming up on that lift was the first time I saw the grandier, you know, the showcase of immortals, and all the things that WrestleMania is and just a feeling that I’ll chase the rest of my life. If we never get another one, and yeah, as a wrestler, you’re always, ‘I gotta get another one. What am I doing next year?’ But gosh, if I don’t get another one, I feel so vindicated. I feel so vindicated to go from just nowhere on the card and no desire to have me, and no priority, and that’s not a knock on anybody, and then to go out in the frickin wilderness and try everything I could to make some noise and change our business in pro wrestling and sports entertainment, whatever you want to call it. I felt like they appreciated it, and I appreciated them.”
Cody also talked about his WWE contract:
“It’s maybe the most complex document or contract ever drawn up in the history of our game, but full commitment, full multi-year commitment, not a part time deal. It’s back to what I used to do every day on the road. These people were wonderful enough to get me a bus so that my family could be with me, and I got everyone, all of them, here tonight. So they bet on me, so I’m gonna bet on WWE, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
“Undertaker said it a couple of times last night in his speech that perception is reality in this industry. Perception of me is all over the place. Oh, he’s an egomaniac. Oh, he asked for all this money. All this crazy stuff. It’s kind of fun to hear, but in reality, I grew up here. I didn’t know what a contract was. I was 19 when I went to OVW. Now it’s just a different story. It’s not so much about, hey, this has to be this way and his has to be this way. It was just more of, I was the executive vice president of AEW. I was one of the founding fathers, and I wanted to make sure that leaving it was with the utmost respect, and I hope no one’s lazy enough here, which no one is, to make AEW jokes or bingo hall references and any of that because it’s nothing against them. It was just time for me to move on. I’d wrestled everybody I wanted to wrestle. I didn’t want to be a 15 time TNT champion and hold the belt hostage. I wanted to move on, maybe to a different piece of leather.”
