In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani of BT Sports following his 2023 Men’s WWE Royal Rumble Match victory, WWE RAW superstar Cody Rhodes revealed that he was not cleared to make his in-ring return until the day of the event.

“I went to the Performance Center, I remember I made a joke in AEW about hip toss class, I did a hip toss class, thank God for it actually, because I worked with, I won’t say one guy’s name, because I don’t want to blow his spot up, but I worked with Carmelo Hayes, Joe Gacy was another guy, I don’t know why I’m not crediting him.

They were rough with me, they were rugged, it let me feel what I needed to feel to know where to get, I can’t wait for their opportunities to come, because they are incredible wrestlers and incredible stars. That experience, I got partially cleared through that, I was able to do what I want, my wind was good, I was training heavily with PT and an off-site team that my wife got for me.

I didn’t really get fully cleared until today, looked good and everything was great, but they still had to get in there, grab it, feel on it. That’s a wild situation, when you’ve been announced for the Royal Rumble, you’ve seen your shirts and seen the young fans. I think it was more of a formality than anything, but still had me kind of shaking. WWE has been very good to me medically, very good, I’ll be in PT for the rest of my life though, I’ve been there every week, and now I have to just do preventive stuff, it changed everything about how I’ve trained.”

The full interview is available at this link.