By winning the 30-Man Royal Rumble match last month, Cody Rhodes made a significant comeback from his injury and earned the right to face Roman Reigns, the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, at WrestleMania 39.
After switching from AEW to WWE last year, he made a comeback at WrestleMania 38 before being sidelined due to a torn pec muscle.
Rhodes is a significant draw for the business in terms of increasing ticket sales, according to Dave Meltzer, who was speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio.
“He got that great reaction at Mania. It’s all been successful. You know we talk about nobody being a draw, blah, blah. It’s the brand that draws. Well, he’s a draw. I mean Sami [Zayn] is a draw, obviously these SmackDown ratings, but Cody is a draw. The weekend at house shows in Columbus and Pensacola. The advances were the same, 2000 – 2500 that they do everywhere else. It was lower than usual. They weren’t bad….they were normal advances. Cody wins the Rumble, and then they announce that Cody is working those two shows, and they did the all-time record gates in both cities – Columbus and Pensacola,” Meltzer stated.
Meltzer noted that unless Roman Reigns is competing in the main event, WWE house shows typically don’t draw crowds of 6,000 spectators like they did this past weekend.
“WWE house shows don’t usually draw like that, so he’s a mover, at least right now and WrestleMania is going to be big. Remember, he was the number merch seller in San Antonio [Royal Rumble],” Meltzer said.
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
