An update has emerged on when the deal was done for The Rock to wrestle at WrestleMania and WWE’s reaction to fan backlash.
Last Friday night on SmackDown, Cody Rhodes was set to make his WrestleMania decision. Many assumed that, since he lost to Roman Reigns last April, The American Nightmare would opt to go after The Tribal Chief once more this year, but, rather than setting up a rematch, Rhodes introduced The Rock to battle Reigns instead, something which caused uproar among fans online.
To provide an update on the situation, Dave Meltzer spoke on Wrestling Observer Radio to reveal that the agreement for The Rock to wrestle at WrestleMania was made as early as January 3, with Meltzer maintaining that the current plan is to have Cody Rhodes turn his attention to Seth Rollins and the World Heavyweight Championship.
“When he made the deal on January 3 to come in, that was part of the deal, and Why Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble is a question that I cannot answer because nobody will answer it for me. But, the belief was that it was Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes, and nobody knew, but the deal had been made prior to that. It played out the way they wanted it to play out. The plan as of Friday night was Seth Rollins and Cody Rhodes, and we’ll see how it plays out because now they’re trying to turn it into a story and see how the story goes.”
-Dave Meltzer
Due to the immense amount of displeasure voiced by WWE fans on social media over the weekend, some are drawing comparison between Cody Rhodes’ current position and that of Daniel Bryan in 2014. To touch on this, Meltzer revealed that the company were actually expecting Cody’s popularity to go down a similar path to what Bryan’s did 10 years ago.
“They (WWE) were expecting Cody Rhodes to turn into Daniel Bryan. Yes. They were expecting to make Cody Rhodes into a martyr and make him a bigger babyface out of that. Were they expecting the people to boo Dwayne? I don’t know, because I’ve asked that one and haven’t gotten a straight answer. And again, we’ll see how they react. Im sure the fans will cheer Cody like crazy. Will they boo Dwayne when he’s at TV? I mean, they very well may. They certainly did not in Birmingham.”
-Dave Meltzer
To close, Meltzer confirms that WWE are now trying to turn the fan reaction into something they can use for a storyline. It’s said that the sudden swell of support from the viewers was ‘absolutely expected’.
“We’ll see how they try get out of it. But they are turning it into an angle, they are encouraging this. The reaction for Cody, about Cody getting screwed and people getting behind Cody, that was part of the story. That was absolutely expected. As far as people booing Dwayne, I don’t know that was expected.”
-Dave Meltzer
As it stands, it doesn’t look as if Cody Rhodes will be getting another shot at Roman Reigns and the Undisputed WWE Universal Title at WrestleMania 40. However, as we’ve seen in the past, it’s possible that the company could still go down that path, particularly given the overwhelming backlash against The Rock shown on social media over the weekend.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the plans for WrestleMania 40 as soon as we hear more.
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