Cody Rhodes Reveals Scrapped Plans for Eye Patch Gimmick After WrestleMania 42 Injury

Cody Rhodes isn’t just dealing with the aftermath of his brutal WrestleMania 42 eye injury; he was ready to turn it into part of his character, but Triple H wasn’t having it.

After revealing the extent of the damage to his eye following his match with Randy Orton at WrestleMania 42, Cody shared an interesting detail while speaking to SportsCenter, and it included a scrapped idea that never made it to TV. As he explained, he actually planned to show up on RAW and SmackDown wearing an eye patch, turning the injury into a visual part of his presentation.

“We tried a little on the eye. I think we deemed that there was no way to cover this up. And I’ll tell you something funny—I thought, ‘I’m going to go to TV. I’m going to go to Monday Night Raw, I’m going to go to Friday Night SmackDown, I’m going to do an eye patch thing.’ I thought that would be cool. Wrestlers are always looking for something—let’s get a new action figure out of it, eye patch Cody.”

Cody then revealed that the idea didn’t last long once it reached Triple H, who quickly shut it down before it could make it on screen. Cody made it clear he was ready to go through with the idea.

“Triple H told me absolutely not. And there might be a shot on Unreal of me throwing that eye patch down backstage, because I had it—I was ready to go.”

Even with the rejection, the American Nightmare made it clear he wasn’t upset about the decision, instead treating the injury as part of the job and something he’s willing to carry forward.

“But hey, it comes with the territory more than anything. I had no complaints—it’s just a little battle scar, that’s all.”

This adds more context to what was already a brutal situation, especially after Cody previously shared images showing his eye swollen shut and his face covered in blood backstage following the match.

Instead of hiding it, he was ready to lean into it, but in the end, WWE went in a different direction. Cody tried to turn a nasty injury into a character moment, Triple H shut it down, and now what could have been “eye patch Cody” is just another behind-the-scenes story from WrestleMania weekend.

Do you think WWE should have let Cody Rhodes run with the eye patch idea, or was Triple H right to shut it down? Let us know your thoughts and feedback.

Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.