Cody Rhodes came to know about his WrestleMania 40 plans much earlier than anyone could’ve possibly anticipated.
As you already know, Rhodes will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in the main event of WrestleMania XL.
The Wrestling Observer is reporting that WWE informed Rhodes about his rematch with Reigns as far back as autumn 2023, with changes being announced on the day of the 2024 Royal Rumble pay-per-view event.
The report states, “For those who were wondering about what Rhodes did and didn’t know about how things went down, he was told he was facing Reigns in the fall. He was not told about Rock getting the match as part of his deal on 1/3 so any interview he did about finishing the story prior to the Rumble was with the idea he was definitely in the match, even with the Rock rumors out. He was told the day of the Rumble that Rock was facing Reigns even though he was winning the Rumble.
He was also told that they would be going to Reigns against him later so all the post-match stuff building that match wasn’t there to swerve people as much as build a later match. But the fact it was not going to be Reigns vs. Rhodes was keep secret from almost everyone (obviously a few knew) because Rock wanted the angle the next Friday a surprise.
Obviously far more would have watched Reigns vs. Rock on night two than Reigns vs. Rhodes, even though Reigns vs. Rhodes had the stronger storyline. You can say this was a company decision to satisfy the hardcore audience while limiting the larger audience, but a lot of it was just Johnson wanting to go heel as much as a decision which turned out to be like that. Johnson in his promo on Raw did two teases for the idea of a match with Reigns down the line, so the idea from a company standpoint is that match will happen.
There were people internally who were aware before Rhodes but it was kept quiet, notably those involved with the booking of T Mobile Arena and obviously the key guys involved in making the deal to bring Rock in on the board and for the Mania match which was actually in heavy negotiations in December.”
WWE almost swerved people when it appeared that The Rock would challenge Reigns and Rhodes would face Seth Rollins. Due to fan outrage, WWE reversed their decision in favor of The American Nightmare who will now get a second chance to “finish his story.”
