Cody Rhodes defeated Roman Reigns to become the new Undisputed WWE Champion on night two of WrestleMania 40. Initially, Rhodes wasn’t supposed to face Reigns at the show.
The American Nightmare handed over his WrestleMania main event spot to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on the February 2nd episode of SmackDown. However, the company had to alter the plan due to fan backlash. The Rock had to turn heel and adopt the “Final Boss” persona as well.
On the Masked Man Show podcast, Dwayne Johnson’s WWE creative writer Brian Gewirtz revealed the original idea of The Rock and Cody Rhodes’ segment on the February 2nd episode of Blue Brand.
“The idea was supposed to be; it’s like a Nixon-Kennedy debate a little bit where it’s like if you read the transcript, you’re like, Oh, Nixon kicked his-ass. If you watch the actual footage, you go, ah, it was a sweaty, terrible mess. Because, Cody, it was supposed to be, in some form, like, yeah! F–kin’ A! Go get ‘em Rock! You’re gonna get your-ass kicked, Roman! Let’s do this! And kind of this uplifting promo, and instead, he looked like someone shot his dog in the face in the parking lot.
Like you said, just look at his expression, and by the way, someone else who, even when the team wins, sometimes looks forlorn and upset, and despondent, Julius Randle. Hey. So yeah, that, I don’t think helped matters. It might not have changed, it might not have affected anything. But certainly on paper — and by the way, I don’t even blame Cody for that because he’s real, he’s one of the realest people I’ve ever met, so yeah, it’s like, he said what he had to say in the promo. But you couldn’t mask what he was really feeling, and I think the fans felt that a lot.”