The latest has emerged on who decided the outcome of WrestleMania 39’s main event.
On December 29, POST Wrestling cited court filings which revealed a series of text messages and emails relating to Vince McMahon’s and WWE’s merger with UFC to form the TKO Group in 2023. Among the filings, McMahon’s involvement in the company’s creative process was mentioned, as the now 80-year-old was seen asking Nick Khan whether Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns knew about the ‘new creative’ with regard to WrestleMania in 2023. Now, Dave Meltzer has provided clarification on who was behind WrestleMania 39’s main event.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer noted that Roman Reigns’ pitched for Cody Rhodes to lose at WrestleMania 39, though Vince McMahon always had the final say.
“It was Roman Reigns’ call. I mean, Vince had to approve it, but Roman Reigns was the one who went to Vince with the idea and pitched the idea that it would be better, it would be more meaningful if he didn’t win the first time, we build to a bigger one the second time and explained it. I think Heyman with Reigns did that. I think they were very persuasive. The argument’s very strong with the benefit of hindsight that they were right because the second year was much bigger than the first year. But Vince made the call and Levesque was on board with the call but Vince was the one who made the call. Vince was the one who had final say at that point. He had final say the whole time. He was the chairman of the board again or whatever. He was in charge of the company and he remained having the final say even though Levesque was ‘in charge of creative.’”
-Dave Meltzer
With Reigns retaining, he’d go on to hit 1000 days as champion and take part in the ‘Bloodline Civil War’. As a result, Rhodes waited until WrestleMania 40 to finally get his hands on the Undisputed WWE Championship, currently being in the midst of his second reign having reclaimed the title from John Cena at this year’s SummerSlam.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on WWE’s initial plans for WrestleMania 39 as soon as we hear more.
H/T to F4WOnline for the transcription.
