10 Times Wrestlers Bet On Themselves (... And WON!)

Professional wrestling is like any other sport, just with added spandex, baby oil, and body slams; players - wrestlers, in this case - move around.

Take the NBA. Many of its key basketballers past and present - Michael Jordan, LeBron James, et al - are synonymous with the Los Angeles Lakers, but they each moved around. Michael Jordan spent the final two years of his esteemed career with the Washington Wizards, whereas LeBron James only joined the Lakers in 2018 after a combined eleven years with the Cleveland Cavaliers and a further four with the Miami Heat.

The point is, no wrestler will ever be exclusively WWE through and through, the exception to the rule being those trained by the WWE Performance Center and the WWE Performance Center alone. The same goes for AEW, IMPACT, ROH, and indeed the vast majority of small-town indies the world over.

Was the Undertaker an in-house WWE trainee? Far from it. Randy Orton? His pre-WWE work was largely in WWE-affiliated developmental systems, but OVW isn't WWE. Even John Cena wrestled prior to his WWE days as daft as it sounds today.

Sometimes, breaking out in a different market is what wrestlers need...

So fast-developing was professional wrestling in 2022 that a major AEW name and company Executive Vice President defecting to WWE wasn't a top-five story of the year.

Confirmed early on in the year by Fightful Select to be working without a contract, Cody Rhodes worked what ultimately transpired to be his final AEW outing on the 26 January Beach Break special of Dynamite, dropping the TNT title back to Sammy Guevara in a thrilling Ladder match, one of the stipulation's greatest modern executions.

The ensuing two-ish months were an exciting time. Rhodes formally departed AEW on 15 February, with a joint statement being published by himself and AEW big cheese Tony Khan confirming as such in a move that couldn't ever be predicted. He very much was on his way back to WWE, a situation made all the more obvious when Seth Rollins was without a WrestleMania 38 opponent, but until he physically returned, it wasn't quite tangible that Cody Rhodes - this revolutionist who defined anti-WWE between 2016 and 2021 - was on his way back.

Going full-blown 'American Nightmare' in his return, Rhodes worked a show-stealer with Rollins, a further two at WrestleMania Backlash and Hell in a Cell, and has now won the Royal Rumble match, inching one step closer to turning the American Dream into a reality.