During the main event of Sunday’s WrestleMania 41 (Night Two) pay-per-view event, John Cena, with assistance from Travis Scott, dethroned Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes to win his record 17th World Title.
During a recent edition of his “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, Matt Hardy criticized WWE’s direction for the Cena vs. Rhodes headliner.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his ideal finish: “The match, when I watched it back, especially the match they had between one another. You had Cody kick out of multiple [Attitude Adjustments], right? He escaped the STFU a couple of times. I thought, especially for what I expected for John, John being older, I still thought he had a real solid match for a main event when it was all said and done. The biggest critique I have was that finish and protecting Cody and the way it was done. I would have loved to seen Rock there, I felt like The Rock being there would have made sense, it would have kind of tied everything together that was part of the story.”
“What I would have personally liked to see is something where they end up doing the spot where Cody already had a visual pinfall and now there’s another one and there’s another pinfall after Cross Rhodes and there’s a one, two, and Travis Scott pulls out the ref, which is a spot that did happen in the match. Pulls out the ref and the ref is supposedly knocked out. Maybe he gets up on the apron like he’s going to come in, Cody goes to confront him, Cody goes after him and then chases him around the ring or something. He comes back in and now John has gotten back up and has the title and now John swings. Cody catches it, they’re fighting back and forth and they’re kind of struggling. They turn around, then finally when Cody is free and he has the title and he’s going to hit Cena, as the last second Travis Scott just hits him, drops the title. He turns around, Cross Rhodes him, and that’s where he gets blasted with the title by [Cena].”
On WWE making Cody Rhodes look weak: “I don’t want to see the deal where Cody had this title after what John Cena had done to him where he punted him the balls, they beat him blatantly, they destroyed him, and now he has sympathy for this guy. I feel like you can’t put Cody in that position. It’s just hard for Cody. I want Cody to still be the cool babyface champ. I don’t want to see Cody in that position where he looks weak. We need to keep Cody as strong as possible and in that finish, I would have tried to book him as strong as possible. If the ultimate story is that he gets kicked in the nuts and hit with a title, I’m fine with that, but the way we get into it is the thing I’m critical of.”
