Cody Rhodes Thought He Would Have Interacted With CM Punk In AEW

Cody Rhodes and CM Punk were the two favourites to win the 2024 men's Royal Rumble match. 

Appropriately enough, The American Nightmare and The Straight-Edge Superstar were the last two men in the match, with Cody eliminating Punk to win back-to-back Rumbles and book a world title match at WrestleMania XL. 

Asked about squaring off with Punk during the post-Royal Rumble press conference, Rhodes noted that he had assumed he would have done so first when both were members of the All Elite Wrestling roster but, for some reason, that never happened. 

"It's funny that we meet back here. Really. When we were at AEW, I thought we would encounter one another there. It didn't happen. For whatever reason, it didn't happen. I think both him and I had different personal experiences. Don't believe anything that Wade Keller put out about why I left or anything like that. The truth is, nobody knows. It's a personal thing. Probably a personal thing for Punk. That happens. People come, people go. It's not a huge thing," Cody said.

When Rhodes left AEW in February 2022, Keller reported that the main reason was because he and Tony Khan couldn't come to terms on money.

The post-Rumble press conference was also notable for Paul 'Triple H' Levesque's admission that he hadn't read the lawsuit filed by former WWE employee Janel Grant against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis and WWE. 

H/T Fightful