Carmelo Hayes Says He Learned A Lot Helping Cody Rhodes Return From Injury

Carmelo Hayes reflects on helping Cody Rhodes train for his Royal Rumble 2023 comeback.

Carmelo Hayes reflects on helping Cody Rhodes prepare for his return to the ring at the 2023 Royal Rumble match.

Cody Rhodes returned to WWE at WrestleMania 38 in April 2022, and had a solid first run back on the WWE roster. Throughout 2022, Rhodes would compete in multiple matches with Seth Rollins, leading to a Hell In A Cell match at the titular Premium live Event on June 6th. 

Prior to this match, disaster would strike. Rhodes would tear his pectoral muscle completely off the bone. Despite this injury, Rhodes wrestled the lengthy match, defeating Rollins.

The injury would take Rhodes out of action until the 2023 Royal Rumble match, where Cody would return to win the matchup and book his spot in the main event of WrestleMania 39.

In the lead up to Cody’s return, he trained with NXT stars Joe Gacy and Carmelo Hayes to ensure he was in complete ring shape.

While speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Carmelo Hayes reflected on training with “The American Nightmare”, noting that he “learned a lot” from training with Cody.

“So I know Cody had like, he’d been reaching out and helping me out give me like little pointers and telling me that things are good and giving me like, you know, just talking to me a little bit about certain matters prior to that. And then I know he was getting ready to come back from the Rumble. And he had picked Joe Gacy myself to kind of work around with him. I think it had a lot to do with you know, Joe Gacy being a little bit bigger, me being a little bit more agile and faster. And then obviously Cody, you know, just want to get to know us younger talent and stuff like that. But it was a huge honour. And like I said in his documentary, I didn’t feel like I was helping him. I felt like he was helping me. He was fine. He was chilling but I was like, Oh my god. This is how these guys do it. This is such a difference when you get in there with guys like that. Is such a difference like you like oh, this is that pacing this is that you know I mean, this is that energy. This is where you turn it up here. Like I learned a lot with Cody. I really did.”

Hayes most recently lost a title challenge to Ilja Dragunov on the October 31st edition of NXT, with Trick Williams returning to confront Hayes after the matchup.

Meanwhile, Cody Rhodes is set to take on Damian Priest in singles action at WWE Crown Jewel tomorrow. You can check out the betting odds for this match and the rest of the card here.

Thank you to Insight and Chris Van Vliet for the quote used in this article