Why WWE Unreal Director Was Surprised By Cody Rhodes Storyline
A key storyline involving Cody Rhodes had the WWE Unreal director thinking that the American Nightmare would be going to the dark side.
One of the biggest WWE shows of the year was the Elimination Chamber PLE on March 1st, with over 30,000+ fans at the Rogers Centre.
After John Cena won the Men’s Elimination Chamber match (thanks to Seth Rollins hitting The Stomp on CM Punk), he earned a shot at the WWE Champion Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 41.
However, there was another story going on because The Rock told Cody Rhodes more than a week earlier that he wanted his soul, and Cody had to answer at Elimination Chamber.
Instead of selling his soul to The Rock, Cody told The Rock, “go f**k yourself,” and Cena applauded that, along with the fans. However, Cena also hugged Cody, stared at The Rock, who did the dreaded throat slash, and Cena kicked Cody in the groin to set up Cena’s first heel turn in over 20 years. It drew a massive reaction from the Toronto crowd while Cena, Rock, and rapper Travis Scott bloodied the WWE Champion, Rhodes.
In the “WWE Unreal” five-part documentary on Netflix, WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque revealed that only a handful of people knew about the heel turn.
John Cena’s heel turn was kept so quiet that Triple H had to direct WWE’s director on how to film it because he didn’t tell them what was happening.
Director Of WWE Unreal Believed Cody Rhodes Was Going To Turn Heel At Elimination Chamber
Chris Weaver, the director of WWE Unreal, spoke with the Wrestling Republic about being kept in the dark about the Cena heel turn until just minutes before it happened. Weaver also admitted he thought that the WWE Champion Cody Rhodes was going to sell his soul to The Rock and turn on the fans.
“I think the most difficult thing is like something like the heel turn, that was so such a big story and had to be kept so secret for them that, you know, that’s like one of the few things we just had no knowledge of whatsoever.
So when I found out I was in Toronto for Chamber and it was like I went into Chamber thinking that Cody was going to turn heel that night, and not through them, not, you know, there was no (indication) it was just sort of my hunch and where they were headed with the story. It just made a lot of sense that he was going to turn heel.
Then obviously, you know, he did the thing in New Orleans with Rock and they were sort of setting it up and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s what’s going to happen.’ and we’ve been sort of told ‘this is going to be a big, it’s going to be a big show’, ‘you don’t want to miss it.’
They were giving us some sort of breadcrumbs, but without telling us explicitly. So when I found out like 15 minutes before that it was actually going to happen, I was like, ‘S**t, we don’t have- what are we going to do in an access show that we don’t have what I knew was going to be the biggest story of the year now?’ So that was like an example of a challenge.”
Cody Rhodes was viciously attacked by Drew McIntyre on the August 8th edition of SmackDown and missed the following week’s episode while McIntyre called him out.
It will likely lead to a Cody Rhodes-Drew McIntyre WWE Title feud, but there’s no word on when they might have a match because Cody is also filming the Street Fighter movie. The vicious attack by McIntyre was a way to write Cody out of storylines for at least a few weeks.