The Rock Pushed WWE For Unpopular WrestleMania Switch
The Rock is on a collision course with Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 as Cody Rhodes looks to miss out on finishing his story once again.
When Cody Rhodes won the men’s Royal Rumble for the second year in a row he made very clear that he was going after Roman Reigns and the WWE Universal Title to try and finally finish his story. But despite the overwhelming fan support behind him, that won’t be happening.
CM Punk suffered a serious injury at the Royal Rumble which ruled him out of WrestleMania and a potential World Heavyweight Championship match with Seth Rollins. WWE began to pivot on Raw as Rollins confronted Rhodes and tried to convince him to challenge for Rollins’ title on the grandest stage of them all. On SmackDown, fans got their answer and it left some very unimpressed.
Cody Rhodes told Roman Reigns on SmackDown that he still wanted the WWE Universal Championship, just not now. He then brought out The Rock who had a staredown with Reigns to end the show indicating that they will clash at WrestleMania 40. Perhaps with his new role on the TKO Board in mind, it seems it was The Rock pushing to do what’s best for business – despite it perhaps not being the best story WWE could tell.
The Rock Pushed WWE For WrestleMania Change
Writing on the Wrestling Observer forum, Dave Meltzer noted that The Rock pushed heavily for the match with Roman Reigns and that became a priority for the company as they looked to move on from the mess created by Vince McMahon which also implicated Brock Lesnar:
Dwayne pushed super hard for it. Read last week’s issue and this week’s. The card changed when Punk & Brock were out and all the dominoes fell. Dwayne already wanted it and they felt they now needed it as well. Felt this was better to change the news flow away from Vince.
Cody was the plan. Dwayne was going to face him later, maybe next year’s Mania, maybe Saudi. Sh*t happens with Vince and Punk, the Vince thing ends up worse than they thought and they changed the plan. I literally didn’t know until yesterday that it could change and then I was told it’s under lock. But 100% it was Punk vs. Seth and Cody vs. Reigns until Punk got hurt.
Vince McMahon has been accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking in a bombshell new lawsuit which led to his resignation from the TKO Board. Although not named in the suit, Brock Lesnar has been implicated and WWE has abandoned creative plans for Brock Lesnar as a result. It was expected that he’d face Gunther at WrestleMania 40.