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Cody Rhodes and Brian Gewirtz talk about WrestleMania 40.
The journey to the main event of WWE WrestleMania 40 was not clear-cut despite Cody Rhodes going back-to-back with Royal Rumble victories. At one point, WWE seemed poised to pull the trigger on The Rock vs. Roman Reigns when the overwhelmingly negative reaction from fans seemed to cause a shift.
Marc Raimondi and Mike Coppinger recently published a feature for ESPN and spoke to several parties involved. This included “The American Nightmare,” who commented on the similarities to his story and that of Daniel Bryan’s “Yes Movement” a decade ago.
“Maybe the stories are similar,” Rhodes said. “Rock and Roman would’ve been amazing at WrestleMania 39. My gosh. But [Rock] didn’t come back and we started something else.”
Brian Gewirtz, who has worked closely with The Rock as a writer in and out of WWE, also weighed in on how The Rock and WWE ultimately agreed not to “screw with” what the fans desired.
“Would the fans be as adamant Cody needs to finish his story if he didn’t win the Royal Rumble?” Gewirtz asked. “Once he won the Royal Rumble, then I think there was a certain element of, ‘Hey, don’t screw with us now.’ You can’t dangle the Royal Rumble win and then take it away.
“And I think everyone, Rock included, was like, ‘Yeah, they’re right. We should continue this story as it naturally would play out if this were real life.’ If this were real life and he won the Rumble and he didn’t win last year’s WrestleMania, there’s literally no logical reason — even though you could try to make one up — why he wouldn’t want to face Roman and win the title.”
As it stands, Rhodes will challenge Reigns once again for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in the main event of WrestleMania Sunday on April 7.
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