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ESPN has a long article up today looking at WWE's creative pivot back to Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns after the initial plans once The Rock came on board was to headline Wrestlemania 40 with Rock vs. Reigns.
Bryan Gewirtz, who once headed WWE's creative and is now one of The Rock's top execs at Seven Bucks Productions, commented:
"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 article noted that after fan sentiment went crazy over Cody Rhodes being booked to back out of his guaranteed match with Roman Reigns, Paul Levesque made the call to pivot the creative.
Comparing the change to how WWE would be locked into plans and never change under the Vince McMahon regime, Paul Levesque stated, "Now it's a different time, and the way I do things is slightly different. My career, I learned from being here, but there were things along the way that I always thought I would do differently. In this time now, I get to make those calls and with a large team of people. Whether people will want to believe it or not, I think we were sort of looking at this as here's where we're going to go to get this started and it has the opportunity of going this way or that way. We always have to call audibles every single week. Everything you do is dependent on reactions. That's what we do as an industry. ... The beautiful thing with this group and with Cody and Roman and Rock especially, everybody's got their ear to the ground. ... And then we all just get together and figure the s--- out."
On the situation where the audience rejected the idea of Roman vs. The Rock in favor of Cody's story, Cody Rhodes commented, "I think [Rock] might just have come back at a strange time, which is wild [for] the most popular wrestler of all time and one of the most recognizable faces on Earth. Just the fact that one person is booing him out there throws me. It means we're doing something special here."
The Rock & Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins will headline Night One of Wrestlemania. Reigns vs. Rhodes will headline Night Two, making it the first time main eventers wrestle on two consecutive Wrestlemania cards. Seth Rollins will also wrestle twice this weekend, facing Drew McIntyre on Night Two Bret Hart and Yokozuna would be the first main eventers to wrestle twice on the same Wrestlemania, having accomplished that task at Wrestlemania X back in 1994.
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