{"id":114682,"date":"2022-07-20T23:43:15","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T03:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=114682"},"modified":"2022-07-20T23:46:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T03:46:24","slug":"cody-rhodes-claims-espy-award-for-best-wwe-moment-of-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2022\/07\/20\/cody-rhodes-claims-espy-award-for-best-wwe-moment-of-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Cody Rhodes Claims ESPY Award for Best WWE Moment of 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>And the ESPY for Best WWE Moment goes to&#8230;Cody Rhodes!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, July 20th, ESPN aired their annual awards show, recognizing the top moments and achievements from the year in sports. While top awards are given to athletes across the most well-known sports leagues including Best NBA, MLB, MLS, NHL, and NFL Player and Best Championship Team, the ESPYS are a true celebration of all things sports and sports-related. They include awards celebrating humanitarianism, service, commitment, and other qualities that go beyond athletics. Awards are also given to the best college athlete, best bowler, best Olympian, best driver, best tennis player, best golfer, and so much more.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Behind the scenes of Cody Rhodes&#039; WrestleMania return\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LP-UL5V9V7o?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>One award, which was first debuted in 2019, is the Best <strong>WWE<\/strong> Moment of the Year. This award was first won by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/07\/10\/espy-roman-reigns-wwe\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Roman Reigns<\/strong> in his return to the ring after winning his battle against leukemia<\/a> and was again awarded in 2021 to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/07\/11\/sasha-banks-bianca-belair-win-espy\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Sasha Banks<\/strong> and <strong>Bianca Belair<\/strong> for becoming the first Black women to main event <strong>WrestleMania<\/strong><\/a>. This year, for the first time, the award was determined via an elimination-style tournament. The 16 moments fans were able to vote on are as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Brock Lesnar wins the Royal Rumble <em>vs<\/em> Bianca Belair wins the RAW Women&#8217;s Championship at WrestleMania<\/li>\n<li>John Cena returns at Money in the Bank <em>vs<\/em> Ronda Rousey wins the Royal Rumble<\/li>\n<li>WWE welcomes back fans with first full live crowd <em>vs<\/em> Stone Cold stuns everyone at WrestleMania<\/li>\n<li>Roman Reigns becomes Undisputed Universal Champion <em>vs<\/em> Cody Rhodes returns to WWE at WrestleMania<\/li>\n<li>Big E cashes in Money in the Bank to win WWE Championship <em>vs<\/em> The Miz turns on Logan Paul<\/li>\n<li>Becky Lynch returns at SummerSlam <em>vs<\/em> The Undertaker is inducted into WWE Hall of Fame<\/li>\n<li>Edge defeats Seth Rollins inside Hell in a Cell <em>vs<\/em> Weeman body slams Sami Zayn<\/li>\n<li>Brock Lesnar returns at SummerSlam <em>vs<\/em> Stone Cold returns to the ring at WrestleMania<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">EXCLUSIVE: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CodyRhodes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@CodyRhodes<\/a> reflects on winning the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ESPYS?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#ESPYS<\/a> award for WWE Moment of the Year. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uwlPVXvSZz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/uwlPVXvSZz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; WWE (@WWE) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWE\/status\/1549962488342626310?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Of those 16, the final moments were <strong>Undertaker<\/strong>&#8216;s HOF induction, <strong>Cody Rhodes<\/strong>&#8216; WrestleMania return, <strong>Steve Austin<\/strong>&#8216;s stunner party at WrestleMania, and <strong>Big E<\/strong>&#8216;s extraordinary cash-in. On Wednesday night, the winner was announced with the ESPY going to Cody Rhodes, who also served as a presenter during the live event.<\/p>\n<p>The fans have spoken. Rhodes&#8217; return at WrestleMania, while in some ways expected, was still one of the most shocking and energizing moments of the year in WWE. And it wasn&#8217;t just about the night he returned, but everything that came after. An unfortunate injury has since derailed Rhodes&#8217; comeback story, but rest assured, the American Nightmare is nowhere near finished with what he returned to WWE to accomplish. In 2022, Rhodes claimed his first ESPY. Perhaps in 2023, he&#8217;ll add his first WWE Championship to his list of accolades.<\/p>\n<p><em>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/watch.wwe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacocktv.com\/watch\/home\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And the ESPY for Best WWE Moment goes to&#8230;Cody Rhodes! On Wednesday, July 20th, ESPN aired their annual awards show, recognizing the top moments and achievements from the year in sports. While top awards are given to athletes across the most well-known sports leagues including Best NBA, MLB, MLS, NHL, and NFL Player and Best [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2418,"featured_media":112516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12,2192,26,4,3],"tags":[629,552,98,2879,297,396],"class_list":["post-114682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wrestling","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-stone-cold-steve-austin","tag-big-e","tag-cody-rhodes","tag-espys","tag-the-undertaker","tag-wrestlemania"],"modified_by":"Marilee Gallagher, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}