Cody Rhodes returns to WWE at WrestleMania, says being back is “heavy”

Cody Rhodes is back in the WWE.

After six years away from the company and an Executive Vice President of a different national wrestling promotion, Cody Rhodes returned to his roots at WrestleMania 38. Rhodes was revealed as the mystery opponent of Seth Rollins and received a hero’s welcome inside AT&T Stadium.

WELCOME BACK! WELCOME BACK! WELCOME BACK! WELCOME BACK! WELCOME BACK! WELCOME BACK! WELCOME BACK!@CodyRhodes has returned at #WrestleMania! pic.twitter.com/3Hf7Gmkr4j

— WWE WrestleMania (@WrestleMania) April 3, 2022

Rhodes spoke with Variety about his return to the company and called the feeling of being back with WWE, “heavy.”

“Everyone who knows has asked me how I’m feeling, if I’m really excited,” Rhodes said of the return. “The answer I kind of keep giving everybody is it’s just a really heavy feeling. When I first got into wrestling, I was solely in the WWE system, and I had that dream of getting to the top. Then dreams are like rivers, as the Garth Brooks song says, and it veered and it changed. Then we were able to do what we were able to do with AEW and that’s something that I’m very proud of, but to be able to revisit the thing that I set out to do in the first place when I didn’t think I would get that chance is just heavy.”

“Even now, thinking about it is heavy. So yeah, all the feelings — happy, excited, pressure, responsibility, all of it. But I don’t know how I will feel until I’m out there. It just seems like kind of a culmination of my whole career, but I don’t want to jinx it. I don’t want to put any hyperbole there, but it’s the biggest crowd in wrestling. It’s returning as me in something that I built and nobody else built. And that’s the ultimate vindication.”

Cody is former WWE Intercontinental Champion and Tag Team Champion in WWE. When he left the company in 2016, Cody was working the Stardust gimmick on a regular basis.

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