Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble back in January, and The Rock returned to seemingly set up a match with Roman Reigns during the February 2 episode of Friday Night SmackDown. In the days that followed fans made it clear that they wanted to see Cody Rhodes get his rematch with Roman Reigns on the Grandest Stage of Them All and WWE changed course in order to make that happen.
The Rock has since reinvented himself by turning heel with his new Final Boss character that’s been receiving a lot of praise from the wrestling community. During an interview with ESPN, The Rock shared his honest reaction to the backlash from fans which caused WWE to change plans.
“I loved it. I think the internet is just doing what they do, there are very passionate Cody Rhodes fans. And I love that. I respect it. I’ve been in this — I was born into this business like Cody. So, we have a tremendous amount of respect for the business.
“Now, there’s Cody Rhodes fans, and then there’s Cody Rhodes, and then the special Cody Rhodes fans who were going crazy and insulting and [sending] death threats and things like that, that were just horrible. So I call them the Cody Crybabies, OK? Because there’s a difference. Cody Rhodes has his passionate fans as we all do. But then those are the fans that take it a little bit too far. So I called ’em the Cody Crybabies.”
Brian Gewirtz also shared some insight regarding The Rock’s reaction the fan support for Cody when he said, “Would the fans be as adamant Cody needs to finish his story if he didn’t win the Royal Rumble? 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.”
The Rock & Roman vs. Seth Rollins & Cody Rhodes will main event night one of WrestleMania 40 while Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship will main event night two.
