Backstage News On The Rock Replacing Cody Rhodes Against Roman Reigns At WWE WrestleMania 40

(Photo Credit: WWE)

Although The Rock vs. Roman Reigns has not been officially announced, it is anticipated that the match will be confirmed as WrestleMania’s main event on Thursday in Las Vegas.

The Rock appeared on SmackDown and stood face to face with Reigns after Cody Rhodes gave up his main event spot, just days after winning the Men’s Royal Rumble match and pointing at Reigns at the end of the show.

The decision to change the main event occurred within the last few days, and Rhodes vs. Reigns was originally scheduled for earlier this week, but things changed by the time they went on the air on Monday Night RAW, and they began teasing Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins.

Dave Meltzer wrote on the Wrestling Observer forum, “It was the plan on that night (Royal Rumble). It was the plan the next day. It wasn’t the plan the day after that.”

Meltzer stated in another post on the F4W Forum that Dwayne Johnson was still pushing for the match with Reigns, even after the idea of holding it in Saudi Arabia was suggested.

Meltzer wrote as follows:

“Dwayne pushed super hard for it. Read last week’s issue and this week’s. The card changed when Punk & Brock were out and all the dominoes fell. Dwayne already wanted it and they 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 later, maybe next year’s Mania, maybe Saudi. Sh*t happens with Vince and Punk, the Vince thing ends up worse than they thought and they changed the plan. I literally didn’t know until yesterday that it could change and then I was told it’s under lock. But 100% it was Punk vs. Seth and Cody vs. Reigns until Punk got hurt”

Moving forward, it appears that Rhodes will officially challenge Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship in the coming days.

As Rhodes stated during his SmackDown promo, he still intends to finish the story by defeating Roman Reigns. He did not specify when this might occur.