On Saturday night, Cody Rhodes made his WWE return at WrestleMania for a phenomenal match against Seth Rollins. The American Nightmare has promised to address his future during tonight's episode of RAW, but opened up on signing with the company during a recent interview with The Ringer Wrestling Show (via WrestlingNews.co).
"I can tell you the one of the most special parts of it was that Bruce and the chairman himself, Vince flew down to meet me," Rhodes said of his contract negotiations. "Had that meeting not led to anything, had it just been a conversation about wrestling and sports entertainment would have been great closure on the last loop. Because I mean, I left here on the worst of terms. I talked all the smack on Earth. But none of it mattered. It was just ‘Hey, you went out and did it.’"
"I remember saying, ‘I have to be me. It has to be the American Nightmare.’ To hear Vince say, ‘Well, it’s not broken. That’s what we’re buying’, again, just vindication. It felt good."
Asked to elaborate on his WWE contract, Rhodes said it's "maybe the most complex document or contract ever drawn up in the history of our game," but confirmed that it is a full-time deal. He also mentioned that WWE got him a bus so his family can travel on the road with him, something believed to be a sticking point for the former AEW star when he was negotiating with Tony Khan.
"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. It’s not so much about, 'Hey, this has to be this way.' It was just more of...I was the Executive Vice President of AEW," Rhodes continued. "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."
It sounds like Rhodes has plans to go after a major title in WWE, and there's a lot to unpack in these comments. Ultimately, WWE gave the American Nightmare what he wanted, and it sounds like he's now more energised than ever to be part of the company. WWE has actually released some behind the scenes footage from his WrestleMania return that you can watch below: