Backstage News On Cody Rhodes Getting Cleared For WWE Return

Cody Rhodes is coming back to the WWE ring at the Royal Rumble even though a recent report claims that he wasn’t cleared to return to the ring at the time of the announcement.

The last match that Cody Rhodes wrestled in was the Hell in a Cell match at the appropriately named Hell in a Cell pay-per-view in June when he defeated Seth “Freakin” Rollins in a WWE Match of the Year caliber match.

What was so impressive about Cody’s performance in the match is that he wrestled with a torn right pectoral muscle that had purple/red scarring on the right side of his upper body. Cody underwent surgery for the torn pec days later and has been rehabbing ever since.

During the first three weeks of WWE TV in 2023, the company has pushed the in-ring return of Cody Rhodes. This past Monday on the January 16th edition of Raw, Cody confirmed he will be in the Royal Rumble match.

In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer provided this update on Cody’s recovery status.

“(Cody) Rhodes has been training in Orlando to get ready. We were told he was not cleared as of when his name was announced, but the fact it was announced tells me it’s just a formality.”

It has been reported previously that two of the guys that Cody has been working with in Orlando at the WWE Performance Center include NXT’s Carmelo Hayes and Joe Gacy.

Meltzer also wrote about how Cody is the odds-on favorite to win the Men’s Royal Rumble match.

“Rhodes was installed at a -160 favorite, with the next ten based on gambling odds being Sami Zayn, The Rock (which would seem unlikely at this point but it would also be something kept secretive if it was), Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Drew McIntyre, Matt Riddle, Gunther, A.J. Styles (who is injured right now), Karrion Kross and Austin Theory.”

The 2023 WWE Royal Rumble takes place on Saturday, January 28th from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.