The WWE has now told its own story of how the WrestleMania 40 main events went down.
In the WWE documentary WrestleMania 40: Behind the Curtain that was released on Wednesday, Triple H and The Rock talked extensively regarding how the WrestleMania main event pivoted in such a short time.
Triple H said Cody Rhodes losing at WrestleMania 39 was in order to give Cody Rhodes a hot year, leading to WrestleMania 40 where he would challenge Roman Reigns again for the WWE Championship. However, an opportunity for another main event emerged when The Rock became available to face Reigns. Rock said he and Nick Khan first started to talk about the match back in December of 2021.
“The deal wasn’t quite there,” he said. “So we decided to shoot for WrestleMania the following year, which of course was WrestleMania 40.”
Rock said the pieces started to come together once the TKO merger finalized. Triple H said he told Rhodes it wasn’t likely he’d headline WrestleMania the afternoon of the Royal Rumble, only a few days after it was announced that Rock would be joining TKO’s board of directors.
“I sat with Cody at the Royal Rumble in the afternoon and told him it was becoming more of a reality that the match with Roman and The Rock could take place at WrestleMania. I don’t think anybody knew a thing outside of Cody. And I’m sure that was a brutal day,” he said.
Later, it was revealed that no plans were made for Rhodes after the angle took place where he allowed The Rock to step into his place at WrestleMania on the February 2 edition of SmackDown. Cameras captured Rhodes that day in a somber mood.
“Obviously his next question is where does that leave me. I’m like, not sure yet. So that’s on me to figure out because this is all happening in real time…we’re going to see what the reaction is,” Triple H said.
The reaction to the SmackDown angle online and crowd reactions on the following episode of Raw eventually caused everyone to pivot. The Rock revealed that he was the one who pitched the idea of Roman vs. Cody, with himself going heel.
“I called Nick [Khan] and Triple H and I called Ari [Emanuel]. I said, here’s how I’m feeling. We can truck through this and we can put on this main event. And the majority of the world, many of which who don’t watch WWE who we do plan on pulling in…they’re going to love this idea of Rock and Roman and we’re going to tell this amazing story. Hopefully this will be the first chapter of a few. We could do that. However, my gut says Ari, Nick, Triple H, my gut says I don’t like, even if its like a segment of fans, I don’t like that they’re upset. And that really bugged the s*** out of me. And it’s not how I’ve operated my entire career. I don’t like it. And I knew, essentially, the choice was mine.”
Eventually, the story turned into Rhodes & Seth Rollins teaming together to take on Reigns & The Rock on night one, with the stipulation being if Rock & Reigns won, Bloodline rules would take place the following night when Rhodes challenged Reigns for the WWE title. Reigns & The Rock ended up winning night one, but Rhodes won the following night regardless of the stipulation to finish his story and become WWE Champion for the first time.
