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Cody Rhodes Appearing On WWE Raw As Road To Crown Jewel Begins

By John Canton • Published Sep 22, 2025 14:25 EDT
Cody Rhodes WWE Crown Jewel Champion

The WWE Champion Cody Rhodes is going to Monday Night Raw.

As the Undisputed WWE Champion, Cody Rhodes is usually only on SmackDown. However, in today’s WWE, the brand extension is less strict than it has been in the past, as sometimes, people appear on different shows without any storyline explanation.

In the main event of the first-ever WWE Wrestlepalooza PLE, Cody Rhodes successfully defended the WWE Title against Drew McIntyre. While McIntyre will likely complain about the referee preventing him from kicking Cody’s head through the bottom of the commentary table, Rhodes was able to find a way to win and keep his title.

The next WWE PLE is the Crown Jewel event in Perth, Australia, on October 11th. It has already been announced by WWE CCO Triple H that the World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins will face the Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes in a match for the “coveted” Crown Jewel Championship.

At the 2024 Crown Jewel PLE, Cody beat Gunther, and Liv Morgan beat Nia Jax to become the inaugural Crown Jewel Champions. The Crown Jewel Championship is something that is only awarded on one show all year, and it is not defended. It’s simply a bonus prize at the Crown Jewel PLE.

Since Cody is going to face his former rival Rollins at Crown Jewel, WWE has announced on social media that Cody will be on the September 22nd episode of Raw in Evansville, Indiana.

Cody Rhodes Has A Long History With Seth Rollins

When Cody Rhodes returned to WWE in 2022 after six years away, he beat Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 38 in an outstanding match. They would go on to have two more awesome matches, including a Hell in a Cell match that Cody won with a torn pectoral muscle. They also teamed up at WrestleMania 40 Saturday when they lost the main event match to The Rock and Roman Reigns.

There is also a deeper history that goes back to the early 2010s when Rollins debuted on the main roster and Cody was established, yet Rollins was the one who got a main event push in the coming years.

While speaking about his history with Rollins on his podcast recently, Cody Rhodes explained why it was important for him to face Rollins in his WWE return matches.

I knew what I should do the moment it was said Seth Rollins at WrestleMania for a couple reasons. Seth Rollins is amazing and part of the furniture at WWE, probably a large part of the future of WWE and has done everything. But on a personal level, I had had Seth Rollins’ first dark match in Dayton, Ohio, at the Nutter Center. I had done live events with him, and then I had seen him fly past me. Rockets the moon and well-deserved and could handle it.

So the idea, and I talked about this with wrestling Cena at WrestleMania 41. The idea of being in the room or in the ring with people who had one on me, now, no, now we’re sharing the same space. Now, we’ve caught up.

In addition to Rhodes against Rollins at Crown Jewel, the new Women’s World Champion Stephanie Vaquer will face the WWE Women’s Champion at Crown Jewel. Tiffany Stratton is the current WWE Women’s Champion, but she’s defending the gold against Jade Cargill and Nia Jax on SmackDown this week, so there could be a new champion for Vaquer to face at Crown Jewel.