Cody Rhodes Reveals When He First Started Thinking About WWE Comeback

During his post-WrestleMania 38 media scrum, WWE superstar Cody Rhodes spoke to the media about his return to WWE the night prior, talked about his meeting with Triple H prior to heading to the ring for his match with Rollins, and revealed why he felt like it was time for his AEW run had come to an end.

The American Nightmare spoke about the first time he met with Vince McMahon since leaving the company six years ago and revealed that he thought the conversation would end with him declining the offer to stay in AEW. Rhodes went into detail about how thankful he's been towards Vince McMahon and how great of a relationship his father had with him, and how that played into him coming back to WWE.

"I can say that we had a meeting in Atlanta and I didn't expect the meeting to go bad but I thought, oh, I'll be presented something that is not for me but I'll be able to say thank you so much and I'll be able to get closure on the first chapter," Rhodes said. "Because the first chapter ended really poorly. 'Hey, I'll see you next week,' 'no, you won't.' And hey, here's my post on how I'm gone guys, no one is keeping me down. I never got closure on that, I never got it from Hunter, I never got it with Vince, I never got it. That conversation was just sparkling and it was really 95% of that conversation was about my daughter.

"So that was just special, I remember telling him afterward thank you and if we never talk again, I feel so good because there's a lot of equity and history with my family. I'm the meanest of all the Rhodes guys, I'm like an angry little kid sometimes with Dustin and Dusty, but Dusty worked for Vince Sr. and has nothing but glowing things about him. He and Vince had a wonderful experience going against each other and competing against each other. Not many people know this but when I was 17-18, we were broke. He didn't want us to know he was broke, he found ways and a lot of that was through independent wrestling.

"One time my power went out and me and my sister were too proud of him to know. In 2005, when he went back to WWE they put his picture on WWE.com and he was a writer for SmackDown, he was having a great time and he did that DVD and he got the residual cheque for the DVD. And my mom hit her knees and thanked God because it kind of saved our family. That's tons of equity. I can break every throne, I can make fun of some of the fun things there are that we all make fun of as wrestling fans but you're still that kid, and I wanted him to know that and I got to tell him that. The fun part was the pitch was really good. It was really good and I thought he was going to tell me something terrible, and this was really good and it was kind of something I needed to hear. It became the easiest decision I had ever made because it wasn't about money. Everybody pays really well in wrestling now, it was about unfinished business."

Cody Rhodes also revealed that he'll be teaming with A&E as the Executive Producer of an upcoming documentary on the career of his father Dusty Rhodes. The former TNT Champion revealed the exact moment he started to have interest in coming back to WWE after six years and stated why that day came in January for the Royal Rumble.

"Maybe around the Royal Rumble," Cody said. "Because I didn't think I'd get another shot at it, in terms of, I was really proud of the run I had with WWE but at AEW I was the Executive Vice President, Head of the Outreach Department, I had a lot of kids. Some of them may be older than me but I had a lot of people that were in my direct purview, so I didn't have time to think about it. We had a show, we had a business to run. I wanted to make sure, and I'm so glad I got one with Sammy [Guevara] on the way out. It was just moving so fast and I have all the fun projects that I love doing. Everything was moving so fast and as soon as the baby was born, it was instantly the second thing I thought other than she's so beautiful is that I have to make a lot of money. I was busy, busy, busy, and I think around the Royal Rumble, because what happens with the Royal Rumble is — this is going to sound super marky and that's fine –I have really good Rumble stats.

"They're in the top 10 of the Rumble and I'm like one of two in that top 10 to not win it, and I remember thinking that's going to go away. Ziggler is still at it, these guys are still in there and getting the time, it would be really good to go back and go back in a vindicated type way. I try to be the absolute best wrestler in the world and prove it here. So I'd say about the Royal Rumble, at the time also creeping in my mind, as much as I love where I was and I loved my job, it's no one's dream to be an executive. It's cool for a minute, then you get blamed for everything and that's not your dream. Everybody wants to be a wrestler, the dream is to put the belt on in their underwear. And I locked myself out of that because I didn't want to upset fans and do that, and they still got pissed.

"I'm thinking, f***, sorry. I locked myself out of the main title picture so around that time I told myself I didn't want to be a gatekeeper wrestler. So around that time, it would be what's best for the whole business to do this. I think it's for everyone to do this and free up the real estate, they hired like 15 guys with what was available at the time so that's good. Yeah, I'd say around the Royal Rumble."