Cody Rhodes Reveals Why He Was Excluded From WWE 2K22, Natalya/SmackDown

Cody Rhodes is a playable character in WWE 2K23 but wasn’t included in WWE 2K22. Last year’s game was released prior to Cody’s WWE return at WrestleMania 38, but fans had expected him to be included as DLC.

In a recent interview with Comic Book Nation, Rhodes revealed why his return to the WWE 2K series was held off until this year. He said,

“I’m very hands on, I will even go as far as saying, I wouldn’t put the heat on 2K in me not being in the game initially and then waiting until the modern iteration of it to happen. The reason being, I’m very particular about the American Nightmare, the whole concept of it. It’s something I built while I was away and until you know people are going to fully immerse themselves in it, they are familiar with it, they respect it, and they only want to further give it a signal boost like 2K can do, it just takes time. I was one of the reasons why it took so much time. If anybody had any problem, it was more me than it was 2K in the sense that I wanted to make sure it was done correctly. I’m also super petty about ‘what’s my number [rating]?’ Super petty. I’m always on my guard and some of these people were working here when I was Stardust, and I know from the cannon of it all, Stardust was a big loser. You’re already ready to fight. ‘I hope they know it’s a different me.’ Most of this crew is more than aware of that and they’ve seen what has happened in our industry. I’m very hands on with it all, which is why it may have taken longer. I also know that they know, it’s a big personal goal of mine to earn my way onto the cover. I don’t know when that will happen, hopefully within my contract time here in WWE. Cena getting the nod this year, is no doubt, more than earned it. We now have a larger appreciation for who John was and what John did, for as long as he did. It’s definitely one of my goals, the cover and a true cover. Not an exclusive, not a collector’s edition. A true cover. That’s a journey itself, a huge milestone.”

WWE 2K23 marks the 10th appearance of Rhodes in the main WWE Games series.

In an interview with The Archive, Natalya teased a potential appearance on WWE SmackDown despite being drafted to RAW this past Monday.

You can check out some highlights from the interview below:

On being drafted to RAW: “It’s exciting. I got drafted from SmackDown to Raw, but that doesn’t mean that I still can’t show up on SmackDown. That’s kind of the cool part about being in WWE. You’re drafted to a certain brand, but if the storyline calls for it, you can show up on another show. It’s cool.”

On how she found out: “How I learned about it was Triple H announced it on Raw. We had no idea. We really learn about a lot of stuff in the company as you guys learn about it. To be perfectly honest, I like it that way. We get to be part of the fan excitement and things can change so fast. In some ways, I’d rater just know about it as it comes rather than hear about it, it gets changed, then you get your hopes up or get excited, and it doesn’t happen. It’s nice to be on the journey with fans when they hear that information as well.”

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