8 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Jan 9 - Review)

2. Reliving A Gruesome Injury

The Cody Rhodes reintroduction via video package continued Monday night, with the second chapter covering his torn pectoral muscle just ahead of Hell in a Cell last year.

The video included comments from Rhodes talking about how the only thing he vividly remembers from the match (a bout he hasn’t gone back and rewatched) was the springboard Cody Cutter, and how he thought he was going to vomit. His surgeon talked about the operation itself, leading to Cody recalling all the questions that popped into his head while in the recovery room about his future.

This gave way to scenes of walking into the Nightmare Factory to begin his rehab and slow path to getting back into shape for a return to the ring. And that sets up next week’s video about his recovery.

So far, this has been a really well done, simple video series that builds a story for Cody to walk into at the Royal Rumble, rather than just walking out as a surprise entrant and WWE has to spend weeks reacclimating fans to him in February in the hopes that everything clicks. This is smart work by WWE, and a nice video.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.