Cody Rhodes made an unexpected appearance on AEW Dynamite on Wednesday, Sept. 23. He showed up in a video that aired shortly before the first match of the night.
A commercial for the new live-action Street Fighter movie aired as AEW prepared for an AEW World Trios Championship match pitting Swerve Strickland and The New Level against The Demand.
The ad showed Rhodes in costume as Guile, the character he plays in the film from Paramount Pictures and Legendary Entertainment.
Street Fighter is set to open in U.S. theaters on Oct. 16. Rhodes is not the only wrestler in the cast. Roman Reigns plays Akuma, and NJPW’s Hirooki Goto plays E. Honda. Jason Momoa also appears in the film as Blanka.
The appearance turned heads, but Rhodes remains with WWE. Rhodes, one of the key figures in AEW’s creation and one of its executive vice presidents, left the company in February 2022.
His final AEW match came on the Jan. 26, 2022, episode of Dynamite, when he lost to Sammy Guevara in a ladder match for the TNT Championship.
Coincidentally, Rhodes also made a surprise appearance on Dynamite on Sept. 23, 2020. He returned that night and attacked members of The Dark Order after Brodie Lee’s TNT Championship defense against Orange Cassidy.