Cody Rhodes’ story may have finished last year at WrestleMania 39, had Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman been unable to influence those in charge at the time.
Reigns retained the Undisputed WWE Championship against Rhodes in the controversial main event inside Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium. The decision was panned by fans at the time as the wrong choice with many blaming McMahon (who’d forced his way back into WWE in January) for the call.
At one time, Rhodes was penciled into dethrone Reigns in SoFi, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports. That was until Reigns and Heyman convinced both McMahon and WWE CCO Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque to change the finish and give Reigns the victory.
This change of plans wasn’t (entirely) done to benefit Reigns and extend his title run for another year. The belief at the time was that keeping the gold on Reigns would be beneficial in getting other talent over, including Jey Uso and Solo Sikoa. Jey certainly benefitted from his championship program with Reigns over the Summer which helped elevate the former Tag Team Champion to his ‘Main Event Jey’ role fans see today.
Holding off on the title change was also proposed to be in Rhodes’ best interest. The idea was that keeping Cody’s hunt for the gold going for another year would make his title win more special. Sure enough, Rhodes’ emotional victory at WrestleMania 40 has been praised by fans and critics. The new Undisputed WWE Champion’s next title defense will be at WWE Backlash: France against AJ Styles.