Cody Rhodes Believes Seth Rollins Was Perfect Opponent For Infamous Hell In A Cell Match

Cody Rhodes has reflected on wrestling with a torn pec, saying Seth Rollins was the perfect opponent for the match.

Cody Rhodes returned to WWE at WrestleMania 38 in 2022 as the mystery opponent of Seth Rollins. Rhodes defeated The Visionary that night, but their rivalry continued for months after, before finally coming to a conclusion in a vicious Hell in a Cell match at the eponymous PLE.

Before the match even started, Rhodes drew audible gasps from the audience when he took off his entrance jacket to reveal a massive bruise covering his pec. The American Nightmare had torn the muscle during training, but he decided to tough it out as he didn’t want to let down his fans.

Looking back on the match during an appearance on All The Smoke, Rhodes revealed that because WWE wants their stars to be clean, he was only able to have baby aspirin to help with the pain.

“WWE is also very adamant about – there’s no substance abuse in this company anymore, none. The 80s are over. We’ve got to be healthy. We’ve got to be clean.

“So people ask all the time, if I had any pain medication or anything of that nature. I had four baby aspirin, because they didn’t even have regular Advil. Now, if they had regular Advil, I would have had it, but they had that baby aspirin.”

Cody Rhodes Was Warned Hell In A Cell Match Could Be Stopped

Continuing, Cody Rhodes was told that the match would be stopped if he was seen to be in too much pain. This led to the star “walking a tightrope,” but he doesn’t think he could have had a better opponent than Rollins.

“I remember at the time being told, ‘Hey, if you’re in pain, we are gonna stop it. There’s nothing to prove here. If you’re in pain, we are gonna stop it.’ My thought was, ‘How would you know?’

I’m already…we’re pretending to be in pain. What level of pain are you gonna go ‘Oh, that’s [too much],’ right? So I’m walking this tightrope the whole match, not sure if they’re just gonna ring the bell, but Seth was the perfect person to be in there with me, Seth Rollins.”

Do you think Cody Rhodes was right to go through with the match despite his injury? Should WWE have stopped it from happening? Let us know your thoughts below!

H/T to SEScoops for the above transcription.