Tag: Wwe Wrestlemania 40

Nick Khan claims WWE WrestleMania 40 plans ‘never changed’

Posted on by Joseph Currier

According to Nick Khan, the way things ended up at WWE WrestleMania 40 were always how they were supposed to go.

The 2024 edition of WrestleMania saw Cody Rhodes defeat Roman Reigns to finish his story and become Undisputed WWE Champion. But the build to the match took a turn when Rhodes briefly gave up that main event spot to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Fans did not respond well to the move, and the match once again became Reigns vs. Rhodes. A tag team bout was also made for night one of WrestleMania 40 with Reigns & The Rock taking on Rhodes & Seth Rollins.

WWE produced its own “Behind the Curtain” documentary on how fan backlash led them to pivot back to Reigns vs. Rhodes. But Khan, speaking at SBJ On Stage, claimed plans “never changed” and the situation went the way WWE wanted it to go.

“By the way, the plan was always how it ended up in Philly two years ago. Sometimes — it’s a pre-determined outcome in wrestling. You want to throw the fans off, you want to let things bake, and then, boom, it ends up the way that we wanted it to end up. It never changed,” the WWE president said. “That was just online rumors and gossip that we were changing — it never changed. We convinced Dwayne Johnson to come back. He’s on our board of directors. It was a tag team match. He’s about the same age I am, so two years ago let’s say he was 50, he was obviously in phenomenal shape, he did everything that we asked of him and then some. But that was always the result we were looking for.”

Khan’s appearance at SBJ On Stage took place in April prior to WrestleMania 42 but was not uploaded until this week.

Nick Khan on not listening to social media criticism —

At the SBJ event, Khan reiterated that WWE listens to ratings, revenue, and relevancy and does not respond to social media criticism. He views X/Twitter as a vocal minority and has not used the platform in regards to WWE.

“People are allowed to complain, but we don’t adjust our business based on complaints,” he said. “We adjust our business based on ratings, revenue, relevancy.

Steve Austin explains not appearing at WWE WrestleMania 40

Posted on by Joseph Currier

An appearance at WWE WrestleMania 40 was pitched to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin — but he had “other sh*t going on.”

The main event of WrestleMania 40 in 2024 saw Cody Rhodes defeat Roman Reigns to finish his story and win the WWE Championship. Cameos by WWE legends The Rock and The Undertaker were part of the match — and it seemed like Undertaker’s spot might have originally been intended for Austin. Undertaker helped fend off interference by The Rock and clear the way for Rhodes to get the victory.

In the past, Austin has explained that the rumored appearance in Philadelphia didn’t happen because of scheduling issues. He expanded on that during an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet.

“Things just didn’t line up. I had other things going on,” Austin said. “You know, I remember when they pitched that to me. I said, ‘Dude, I got some things going on. I don’t see myself being there.’ That was way in advance. Was it pitched to me, or did they want me there? Yeah, but I wasn’t in a position to go.

“There was a possibility that I could have been there, had I chose to go there. I had other sh*t going on. Sometimes, you know, WWE is this multi-billion dollar corporation. I got a metal shop that we’re sitting in. So, sometimes the multi-billion dollar company has an idea that the dude that has the metal shop — it just don’t work. It didn’t work. I’m over here in my metal shop. I like to do as much as I can with WWE. When it works for them, when it works for me, and when it’s going to be fun. In saying that, not everything lines up on a timeline basis. I had other sh*t going on.”

Austin was able to make an appearance at WrestleMania 41 happen, with him showing up in Las Vegas at the second night to announce the attendance. The Austin vs. Bret Hart match from WrestleMania 13 was also inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame that weekend.

WrestleMania is back in Vegas this year — and Austin owns a ranch in the state of Nevada. It remains to be seen if he’ll be involved in the show. If he is, it likely will not be for a wrestling match. The 61-year-old Austin noted on Insight that he feels physically capable of having one more WWE match but probably never will.

JNPO wrestling year in review series: Cody finishes his story & CM Punk tells his

Posted on by Josh Nason

Image: WWE

On a new Punch-Out, my wrestling year in review series continues with a stop in a very busy April which saw WWE WrestleMania 40, a newsworthy CM Punk interview, All In footage making the airwaves, and lots, lots more.

Helping me do that is the debuting Warren Hayes of Voices of Wrestling and his own podcast.

Some of the topics we covered over this two hours (!) of talkin’:

  • Everything that was WrestleMania 40 which saw Cody Rhodes finish his World title story, The Rock’s return to action, Stephanie McMahon return, and everything else that happened in Philly
  • The CM Punk interview with Ariel Helwani where he talked about his time in AEW for the first time including all the backstage drama
  • AEW’s response which was to air backstage footage from Punk’s skirmish with Jack Perry from All In
  • Swerve Strickland winning his first AEW World title
  • Some interesting thoughts on NJPW…and more.

Click here to listen

The rest of the series:

The Rock & Triple H reveal details on WWE WrestleMania 40 main event pivot

Posted on by Bryan Rose

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.

VIDEO: WWE releases first two minutes of WrestleMania 40 documentary

Posted on by Joseph Currier

After a lengthy delay, WWE is gearing up for the release of its WrestleMania 40 behind-the-scenes documentary.

WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtain was originally supposed to premiere on WWE’s YouTube channel on April 10, just three days after WrestleMania concluded. But the documentary was delayed with it being reported that WWE was still going through the vast amount of footage that was shot over WrestleMania weekend.

Now, nearly three months later, Behind the Curtain will finally premiere on YouTube at 7 p.m. Eastern time next Wednesday (July 3). Paul “Triple H” Levesque provided a first look at the documentary by uploading its first two minutes to social media today.

Behind the Curtain is narrated by Fox Sports reporter Tom Rinaldi and documents the change that WWE made to the WrestleMania 40 night two main event, pivoting to Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes after fans rejected the idea of The Rock taking Rhodes’ place. The Rock instead turned heel for the first time in decades, teaming with Reigns against Rhodes & Seth Rollins at night one of WrestleMania 40.

The Rock pinned Rhodes in that tag match and may be a future challenger for Rhodes’ Undisputed WWE Championship.

While appearing on The Ringer’s Masked Man Show last month, former WWE head writer Brian Gewirtz — who now works for The Rock’s production company — addressed why the release of Behind the Curtain was delayed.

“There is, believe it or not, there is an awesome doc that WWE… The Rock isn’t holding hostage until he has approval of every frame… Jesus,” Gewirtz said. “But there was, I think there was an error in terms of promoting it so soon because it wasn’t ready to come out. So, that was an error that was made. But this was a doc that I think went from 11 minutes to 45 minutes, now it’s over an hour. And it’s pretty awesome, and it will be coming out in some form pretty soon, is my understanding.”

WWE announces new date for ‘WrestleMania 40: Behind the Curtain’ documentary

Posted on by Bryan Rose

The long-delayed WrestleMania 40 documentary has a new premiere date.

Triple H announced on social media Monday that ‘WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtain’ will premiere July 3 on YouTube at 7 pm ET. 

“The Road to #WrestleMania XL was all about finding magic amidst the chaos,” Triple H wrote on X.  “Now…we’re showing you how it all really went down. WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtain premieres July 3 at 7pm ET, exclusively on @WWE’s YouTube channel.”

The documentary was first announced for an April 10 release, just days after the two-night premium live event. However, the film never aired, with no reason being given. Back in May, former WWE head writer and current executive for The Rock’s Seven Bucks production company Brian Gewirtz denied that Rock was responsible for the film’s delay.

“There is, believe it or not, there is an awesome doc that WWE…The Rock isn’t holding hostage until he has approval of every frame… Jesus,” he said on The Ringer’s Masked Man Show. “But there was, I think there was an error in terms of promoting it so soon because it wasn’t ready to come out. So, that was an error that was made. But this was a doc that I think went from 11 minutes to 45 minutes, now it’s over an hour. And it’s pretty awesome, and it will be coming out in some form pretty soon, is my understanding.”

Those featured in the trailer include The Rock, Triple H, Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins.

Pacific Rim: Fumi’s trip to WrestleMania, more Rossy Ogawa & Marigold thoughts

Posted on by Jim Valley

Yes, the Pacific Rim Pro Wrestling Podcast still exists.

Longtime wrestling journalist Fumi Saito and I discuss his trip to Philadelphia last month to see Bull Nakano inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He talks about how it happened, his thoughts on the ceremony, and WrestleMania 40 itself. (You might recognize him and a famous wrestler in the picture above).

From there, we talk about Rossy Ogawa, Stardom and Rossy’s new Marigold situation.

Other topics include this year’s Hana Kimura Memorial Show, Fumi’s interview with Giulia, his appearance on the John Tenta episode of Dark Side of the Ring, and much more.

Click Here to Listen (sub needed)

Jey Uso feels he and Jimmy let people down with WWE WrestleMania 40 match

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Jey Uso feels like he and his twin brother Jimmy let people down with their WrestleMania 40 match.

In what was the third-ever brother vs. brother match at WrestleMania, Jey defeated Jimmy at night one of this year’s event. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart and Matt Hardy vs. Jeff Hardy were the two previous brother vs. brother matchups.

Jey vs. Jimmy only went 11 minutes and received largely negative reviews. While speaking with Gorilla Position, Jey gave his thoughts on the match:

Jey: I just said this to someone – I kind of feel like we did let the people down.

Gorilla Position: Really? You feel that?

Jey: Yeah, man, because I wanted to go out there and have a straight-up banger too. I wanted to do the wrestling part, but let alone make sure the emotion part is there.

It was just a time issue, uce. You know what I’m saying? You just got to play your position on the team. That’s what happened. I’m still happy though, uce. I got a singles match on WrestleMania with my brother – that’s the big picture. So I’m going to always have me and him in the faceoff at WrestleMania. I’m going to frame a picture. It’s marked off our box. I just wish we could have went ham the way I know we can.

Before the match, Jey and Jimmy found out they were having some of their time cut due to the show being over its planned time. Jey vs. Jimmy was the fourth of seven matches to take place on the WrestleMania 40 night one card.

Damian Priest will defend his World Heavyweight Championship against Jey at WWE Backlash in Lyon, France on Saturday, May 4. Jey is looking to become a singles champion for the first time in his career.

Triple H had ‘great time’ working with The Rock on WWE WrestleMania 40 creative

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Paul “Triple H” Levesque had a great time working with his old in-ring rival The Rock on the creative side of WrestleMania 40.

At WrestleMania, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson returned to the ring for his first real match in more than a decade. He teamed with Roman Reigns to defeat Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins at night one of the show. Night two then saw Rock get involved in the Reigns vs. Rhodes main event for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.

Levesque, WWE’s Chief Content Officer, spoke at the World Congress of Sports convention on Wednesday. During the appearance, he praised The Rock for how invested he was in making WrestleMania 40 an amazing ride for the fans:

I can only imagine what’s next for The Rock. He’s got his hands in just about everything. We were thrilled to have Rock being involved. When you can have the biggest star on the globe, arguably, want to be a part of what we do, and in a meaningful way, and want to do it in a way where he’s not just like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll come in, tell me what to do, I’ll go do this.’ Like, all of his resources, all of his brain power, all of his creative, all of those things, his branding, everything. ‘I want to invest in this and make it this amazing ride for our fans.’ It doesn’t get any better than that. So his coming in, just across the board, if you would have told me in the beginning of the conversations we were going to get the ‘Final Boss’ heel version of The Rock, I would have said you’re crazy. But that’s his level of commitment.

He goes off, makes a few movies now, but as he said a week ago, he’ll be back. And it’ll be a hell of a ride when he comes back.

While The Rock may have other pursuits, Levesque believes pro wrestling is in his DNA. Levesque said it was a blast to work behind the scenes with Rock on WrestleMania:

[Rock] does this thing where he comes out where he gets goosebumps and he hits his arms to show the camera the goosebumps on him. And he and I have joked about that for years. There is nothing else – like, he doesn’t finish a scene making a film and get goosebumps all over him. He doesn’t watch the movie when it comes out and get goosebumps all over him, I’d highly doubt it.

When you’re standing in a ring at WrestleMania, 75,000+ fans going absolutely insane, you get goosebumps all over you. And it’s the adrenaline rush, it is in his DNA, it’s who he is as a human being. He just absolutely loves it. And you can see it in his passion for it. He might be going in a million different directions, but the second he steps into our world, he’s all in on us. And it’s been – I was fortunate enough to work with him all through the 90s, the 2000s, everything. It was a blast to get back together and creatively to do this together. I had a great time,

WWE has set up a future Rhodes vs. The Rock match for whenever Rock does make his return. Rock pinned Rhodes in their tag match at night one of WrestleMania. Rhodes became Undisputed WWE Universal Champion by defeating Reigns the next night.

This January, Rock was named to the Board of Directors of TKO Group Holdings (the parent company of WWE and the UFC).

Philadelphia would be ‘thrilled’ to host WWE WrestleMania again

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Following the success of WrestleMania 40, Philadelphia is hoping it won’t be long until it hosts WWE’s marquee event again.

Philadelphia Business Journal published an article this week noting that Philadelphia “plans to petition to bring WrestleMania back” to the city in the near future. Larry Needle, the executive director of the PHL Sports division of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the city will engage in those conversations with WWE when the time is right.

“This is such a highly-coveted event that we know there’s a long line of cities clamoring to host, and that’s just the reality of an event of this magnitude,” Needle said. “But needless to say, we would be thrilled to have WrestleMania back, and at the right time we will engage in those conversations with the WWE.”

This was the second-ever WrestleMania to take place from Philadelphia. The first was WrestleMania 15 in 1999.

WrestleMania 40 was held at Lincoln Financial Field with other venues in Philly playing host to WWE’s surrounding events.

Before this, the most recent WrestleMania to take place in the Northeast was WrestleMania 35 in New Jersey.

‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin WWE WrestleMania 40 update

Posted on by Joseph Currier

In the new edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer explained why there wasn’t a cameo by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin at WrestleMania 40.

The WrestleMania 40 night two main event between Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns included appearances by WWE legends John Cena and The Undertaker. Some fans were hoping that Austin would also get involved and renew his rivalry with The Rock, but it didn’t end up happening.

Meltzer reports that Austin and WWE couldn’t reach a financial agreement. Because of that, Undertaker appeared in the spot that Austin was earmarked for:

I think a lot of people expected Steve Austin to come out next and take out Rock with a stunner, and then Rhodes would start hitting Cross Rhodes and win the title. Undertaker’s gong hit and he choke slammed and took out Rock. Austin was the person originally earmarked for that spot, but in the end they couldn’t reach a financial agreement and Undertaker was put in his place.

Cena, Undertaker, Seth Rollins, and Jey Uso all helped Rhodes fend off interference by The Bloodline in Sunday’s main event. It ended with Rhodes defeating Reigns to end his 1,316-day run as champion.

At WrestleMania 38 in 2022, Austin came out of retirement to defeat Kevin Owens in a no holds barred match. Austin hasn’t appeared at WrestleMania in the two years since.

April 15, 2024 Observer Newsletter: WWE WrestleMania 40 review, AEW airs CM Punk/Jack Perry All In footage

Posted on by Dave Meltzer

In the 150 years of this industry all over the world, there has never been a show, and a main event, that garnered the level of interest as Cody Rhodes’ two-year storyline of chasing Roman Reigns for the Universal title, which climaxed at the 4/7 WrestleMania day two.

People may attribute other matches as having more historical importance, and you can only look at them years later with any perspective. WWE creates its own history and they can create the long-term aura and significance of the match to whatever historical level they desire. They made the call to go one more year rather than pay it off last year, to a lot of criticism.

The reality is the plan was always to pay the story off and it was just a question of when. In hindsight, they ended up lucking into something that made it bigger, which was the plans that changed when Dwayne Johnson came back to not pay it off on this show. But based on public reaction, they changed plans and they lucked into something far bigger than it would have been. It was the classic case of teasing you with something, having it taken away once and seemingly twice, so it becomes even bigger when you get it.

Other stories this week include:

  • AEW’s decision to air the CM Punk/Jack Perry fight footage from All In
  • The death of Akebono
  • WWE NXT Stand & Deliver recapped
  • The latest in NJPW and lots more.

Subscribers can click here to read this week’s issue.

Netflix aired WWE WrestleMania 40 live in New Zealand

Posted on by Josh Nason

In a surprise move, Netflix aired both nights of WWE WrestleMania 40 live for subscribers in New Zealand.

First noted by Lightshed Partners’ Brandon Ross based on X activity, it came as a surprise to a local there:

Ross noted that the country of 5.1 million is a market “known as a test bed for tech companies.”

The rationale: they are English-speaking, tech-savvy early adopters, affluent and isolated enough where if something doesn’t work, there is little blowback in terms of bad P.R. Major companies like Google, Facebook, Domino’s, Microsoft and others have tested out products and technology there through the years.

As of Wednesday, one independent Netflix popularity tracker showed the event as the fifth most popular TV show on the service there after reaching the top spot earlier this week.

WWE and Netflix announced a five-year, $10 billion deal in January 2024 that will bring Raw to the streaming giant for U.S. viewers and all of WWE’s content for international viewers (in countries that don’t have existing deals in place) starting in January 2025.

Drew McIntyre’s ring gear was legitimately lost before WrestleMania 40

Posted on by Joseph Currier

Before WrestleMania 40, Drew McIntyre sent out a tweet that some assumed was just another troll.

McIntyre claimed that UPS lost his ring gear, and he used the opportunity to mock CM Punk, asking if he could borrow some trunks since the injured Punk wouldn’t need them.

Special effects artist Jason Baker revealed on Tuesday that McIntyre legitimately lost his gear before WrestleMania. Baker’s wife Mandy, who is a production designer, worked all night on Saturday so that McIntyre would have new gear for his match against Seth Rollins.

“His gear was legit lost. Not a work. You suck @UPS,” Jason Baker wrote. “My phenomenal wife @SandyMimpson left #WrestleMania40 night one during the show, stayed up until 6am, and had replacement gear ready for @DMcIntyreWWE before the start of Night 2. She’s an absolute legend! #proudhusband”

Rollins vs. McIntyre opened the action on Sunday. McIntyre defeated Rollins to win the World Heavyweight title, but his reign ended almost immediately. Damian Priest cashed in on McIntyre to become the new champion.

The story was that McIntyre’s obsession with trolling Punk cost him his WrestleMania moment. After defeating Rollins, McIntyre turned his attention to mocking Punk (who was on commentary for the match). Punk responded by taking off his arm brace and using it to attack McIntyre. That allowed Priest the opportunity to cash in.

Punk again cost McIntyre on Monday’s post-WrestleMania episode of Raw. Interference by Punk led to McIntyre losing a fatal four-way number one contender’s match.

Jey Uso won the number one contender’s match and is first in line for a shot at Priest’s World Heavyweight Championship.

The Rock earns over $9 million in TKO stock during WWE WrestleMania 40 weekend

Posted on by Josh Nason

Following his return to the ring Saturday on the first night of WWE WrestleMania 40, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson earned nearly 97,000 shares of TKO stock currently worth over $9 million.

The news was revealed in an SEC filing that came out late-Tuesday, required as Johnson sits on the TKO board. The 96,558 Class A shares fully vested Sunday, putting Johnson at 193,116 total shares owned according to the filing.

The shares were part of Johnson’s January 2024 deal to join the TKO board as the shares “vested upon completion of certain services described in that Independent Contractor Services and Merchandising Agreement…” Those services are assumed to be Johnson’s match that saw him team with Roman Reigns to take on Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins and all of the lead-up to the match itself.

The January arrangement also included Johnson gaining full IP ownership of “The Rock” name in addition to other character-related trademarks.

After Saturday’s show, Johnson intimated that he wasn’t done with in-ring action and on Monday’s WWE Raw, he told Rhodes that he would be coming for him at some point. Johnson is heading back to Hollywood to work on the A24 “Smashing Machine” movie and then the live-action Moana after that.

It’s unknown if Johnson will continue to earn vested stock for future matches.