Backstage Report On Why WWE Swapped The Rock In For Cody Rhodes At WrestleMania 2024.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson appears to have replaced Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes as Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns’ opponent at WrestleMania 40.
Despite being a much-discussed dream match, the timing of the announcement and shunting of Rhodes out of the picture has led to huge backlash from fans, and there’s been some updates on the matter since.
Dave Meltzer wrote on the F4W Forum that it was Rock who pushed super hard to make his match with Reigns happen, and the change came to be when it was clear CM Punk and Brock Lesnar were both off the WrestleMania card.
Rhodes was previously planned to challenge Reigns in a rematch of their WrestleMania 39 bout, while Punk was penciled in to face WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins, and a Rock-Reigns bout was due to be made further down the line with either next year’s WrestleMania or a potential Saudi Arabia show in mind. Meltzer floated the idea that the change could have been made to divert attention from Vince McMahon’s sex trafficking scandal.
Later indicated that, per some of their WWE sources, Johnson put himself forward to “save WrestleMania” in the absence of Lesnar and Punk. Yet, still other sources reportedly believe he was going to push for this regardless, given his conditional $30 million stock deal with TKO is contingent on hitting milestones.
Such milestones are speculated to have included a return to the ring, and Johnson felt the time was right to do so with the idea that Rock vs. Reigns will be the larger attraction. Therefore, it’s possible that regardless of who won the Royal Rumble it was going to be Rock challenging “The Tribal Chief” in Philadelphia.
