The Rock Reportedly Pushed Hard To Face Roman Reigns At WrestleMania 40

Last week Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble for the second year in a row and he punched his ticket to WrestleMania. Following his victory at the Royal Rumble, Seth Rollins confronted Cody Rhodes and questioned why he would want to challenge for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship instead of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Seth suggested that he and Cody should face off at WrestleMania and Cody told Seth that he would think about it.

This week Cody Rhodes showed up on Friday Night SmackDown and WWE was advertising that The American Nightmare would be making a decision regarding his opponent for WrestleMania 40 in April.

Cody Rhodes confronted Roman Reigns in the main event segment of SmackDown and he told The Tribal Chief that he wants his title. Rhodes then followed up by saying that he’s coming for Roman, just not at WrestleMania. The Rock made his entrance and hugged Cody who then left the ring as The Rock and Roman stared each other down while the show came to an end.

Dave Meltzer noted on the Wrestling Observer forum that Cody vs. Roman was the original plan. However, several factors such as CM Punk’s injury and the Vince McMahon lawsuit played into WWE’s decision to change plans.

“The Rock pushed super hard for it. The [#WrestleMania 40] card changed when CM Punk & Brock Lesnar were out and all the dominoes fell. Dwayne already wanted it and they [WWE] felt they now needed it as well. Felt this was better to change the news flow away from Vince.”

“Cody was the plan. Dwayne was going to face him [Roman Reigns] later, maybe next year’s Mania, maybe Saudi. The Vince thing ends up worse than they thought and they changed the plan. 100% it was Punk vs Seth and Cody vs Reigns until Punk got hurt.”

Are you looking forward to seeing The Rock vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania? Sound off in the comments below.