‘The American Nightmare’ Cody Rhodes has revealed some candid details of a behind the scenes meeting with Vince McMahon ahead of his return to WWE at WrestleMania 38.
Rhodes returned to WWE as Vince McMahon’s hand-selected mystery opponent for Seth ‘Freakin’ Rollins on night one of the spectacular event held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas and received a thunderous ovation before scoring the victory in a twenty minute classic.
After a decade with WWE, Rhodes departed the company in 2016 after becoming unsatisfied with creative and set off around the globe to carve a new legacy for himself with appearances for the likes of IMPACT Wrestling, Ring of Honor, and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
The plumber’s Grandson would move on to become a driving force in the creation of AEW, serving as an Executive Vice-President for the company before WWE Executive Bruce Prichard reached out about a return to WWE. Rhodes would go on to meet with Prichard and McMahon and agree upon the WrestleMania return.
Cody Rhodes Reveals Details Of Pre-2022 WWE Return Meeting With Vince McMahon
Rhodes’ return to the company is a focus of a new documentary, American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes, set to be released on July 31st.
Vince McMahon flew to Cody Rhodes to talk to him to about going back to WWE
New episode with Cody this Tuesday! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/ju3iWR3cOy
— Chris Van Vliet (@ChrisVanVliet) July 22, 2023
In a teaser clip released by Chris Van Vliet on Twitter from an upcoming interview with Rhodes to promote the documentary, ‘The American Nightmare’ noted his surprise that the WWE Executives had been tracking his post-WWE endeavours:
“I think he laughed. He has that like hahahaha! I remember going in to talk to him. I wasn’t afraid of anything and I was over compensating because both Vince and Bruce were so welcoming and so positive about what I had done. The fact that they knew what I had done and actually were citing different things. Like ‘I saw this, I saw this,’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Rhodes also revealed that the conversation only moved on to business in the latter stages, with McMahon instead choosing to discuss Fatherhood with the returning talent:
“He’s talking to me about what it’s like to be a dad for a daughter and how special it is. It was just beautiful. And then like, in the last 20 seconds of the meeting: ‘Well, Seth Rollins at WrestleMania.’ That’s where the only business came up. It didn’t feel like a meeting until maybe the last 30 seconds.”
H/T: TJRWrestling for the above transcription