Welcome, welcome, welcome to After the Bell. I am still Corey Graves. I am joined as always

each and every week by the Irish curse himself, Mr Kevin Patrick. We are officially on the road to

WrestleMania and without any further ado, joining us on this first leg of our journey. A man with

WrestleMania plans of his own. He is the winner of the men's 2023 Royal Rumble match,

the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes. Cody, good morning. Thanks for taking time to hang out here on

ATB. Oh, well, good morning to you. It is still surreal hearing that. I just heard it in the

hallway a few times here. I'm at the headquarters and congratulations, congratulations. It is

not fully sunk in. What I'm even being congratulated for. That's very special. The Royal Rumble,

being one of my favorite matches of all time, and that to be able to come back there, that's the

return, the Royal Rumble, the biggest one ever in the Alamo Dome. I can remember watching Sean

Michael's and Sid with that 85 minute long cover at the end. With the camera, right? Yeah, super

kick camera. For sure, he's going to kick out. Sean's taken 17 minutes to cover him. He's still

then kick out and I was pumped because I love Sean Michael still do, but yeah, to come back in the

Alamo Dome, something about Texas, something about Texas. So we had known for weeks in the lead up

to the Royal Rumble match that you were going to be a participant. We have seen it's been very

well documented. Your recovery, your journey from suffering a torn peck last year. What did it

feel like when you stepped through the entrance in front of 51,000 people live in the Alamo Dome and

millions around the world to truly begin the next chapter of your story? What was going through

your mind in that moment? I think it's a combination of two things were really happening as far as I

was very concerned that I returned better than I left in terms of physical, in terms of form.

But also, there's a couple factors that go into the Rumble that aren't typically something you

think about. For one, you're sliding into a hostile territory already in terms of that ring. There's

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