The WWE and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson find themselves in the middle of a social media furore after it was indicated that it would be The Great One, and not Cody Rhodes, facing Roman Reigns for the WWE championship at WrestleMania 40. Although nothing has been made official, the closing segment of Friday night Smackdown, where 2024 Royal Rumble winner Cody seemingly ‘gave up’ his WrestleMania main event spot to the returning Rock, has not gone down well with fans and the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC).
How, what, when, where and why? We’ve got you covered. Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns was always going to be the plan for WrestleMania 40 because the two-time Rumble winner was keen on ‘finishing the story’. After Cody lost to Reigns at last year’s Mania, the belief that he will be the one to dethrone Reigns and end his over 1000-day reign as champion solidified further when Rhodes became the first superstar since Stone Cold Steve Austin to win back-to-back Rumbles.
So when the Rock made his WWE return last month and said that he wanted to sit at the Head of the Table, it was clear that the creative was finally making a move towards a dream match between Reigns and the People’s Champion. After all, this was a match in the making for the last three years. In fact, the dream match was a ‘lock-in’ last year, as revealed by The Rock himself, but couldn’t take place due to outside factors. So yeah, it was evident that the battle of the Anoa’I cousins would headline WrestleMania.
So why the fuss, you ask, right? Simple. Because they made Cody win the Rumble, following which Rhodes even pointed out at Reigns sitting in the corporate box of the arena. Rhodes has been WWE’s biggest babyface (good guy) in years and had been building him up to be the face of the company after Reigns, who has been working limited-schedule over the last six-odd months. He won the title back in mid-2020 and has even run out of opponents to face, having ‘smashed’ them all one by one – including John Cena, Edge, Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Cody himself.
Cody vs Roman the original plan, so what changed?
Where everything went wrong was in and around the Royal Rumble itself. The original plan was for CM Punk to face Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 40 and Cody taking on Reigns, but when the returning Punk injured himself and had to be ruled out, it threw a spanner in the works. Furthermore, the sex scandal involving Vince McMahon was something the WWE was struggling to deal with, and with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson appointed to UFC, WWE’s TKO Group board of directors, everything changed drastically. The Rock vs Reigns was always going to be a money-maker, but was scheduled for later this year – even possibly at Mania 40 – but the WWE now would be the opportune moment to have the match everything had been wanting for so long to take the spotlight off the entire McMahon controversy.
Only now, the fans don’t want that match anymore. WWE’s YouTube video of the Rock and Reigns coming face-to-face, expected to blow the roof off on social media, backfired miserably and became the most disliked WWE video of all time, generating 2,44,000 dislikes in just over nine hours after upload. You need no rocket scientist to measure the fan backlash. They fans want Cody Rhodes and not The Rock to face The Tribal Chief in the main-event at WrestleMania 40. And truth be told, they are right in their take too.
Johnson has been called out by multiple users on X, accused of using his power on the board to not just ‘push hard’ for the match but even potentially winning the title from Reigns. Imagine the consequences. Under Triple H’s reign as director of creative, WWE has been nothing short of exceptional in their storylines and bookings. The company has been hotter than ever, soaring past competitions like TNA and the AEW, but this disaster has the potential to undo years of the hard work Triple H put in.
The Rock headlining WrestleMania is a classic case of WWE falling back on their previous superstars and the expense of new and emerging talent, something the company was frowned at for years during its time when McMahon was in power. In 2013, just because the WWE wanted to make WrestleMania 28’s ‘Once in a Lifetime’ match between The Rock and John Cena a twice in a lifetime, they had The Rock end Punk’s 434-day reign as WWE champion and beat him at Royal Rumble. And history could just be repeating itself 11 years later.
There’s still time, WWE and Rock. Fix this, else the repercussions could be worse than pushing Reigns down the throat of the audience as ‘The Big Dog’.