As seen on the February 2nd, 2024 edition of WWE SmackDown, Cody Rhodes appeared to have stepped aside for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to face Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 40. Despite this, Cody chose Reigns as his opponent for WrestleMania during the Kickoff event.
In the most recent Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com reported that Paul “Triple H” Levesque “scrambled behind the scenes to keep Rhodes at all times.”
According to Meltzer, Levesque initially planned to do an injury angle in which The Bloodline attacked Cody on the February 2nd SmackDown.
Reigns vs. The Rock was set to be announced for WrestleMania during the Kickoff event, with Cody making a return. The belief is that Cody “was never going to get screwed” and would have eventually gotten his match against Reigns.
It was reported that things changed after CM Punk was injured and Rollins needed an opponent for Wrestlemania. Meltzer went on to say that WWE “didn’t want Reigns doing the angle to injure Rhodes, since if they did that angle, it would make no sense to do Rollins vs. Rhodes.”
Meltzer wrote the following about Cody’s segment with Rollins from the January 29th edition of RAW:
“The storyline on the 1/29 Raw where Rollins tried to talk Rhodes into taking the match with him on that night wasn’t 100 percent to set up that match, although it was clearly probable and very quickly was the plan. We’re told it was a backup plan designed to provide for an alternative regarding Johnson’s pitches of what he wanted because things were constantly changing.”
