A new report reveals who was really behind Cody Rhodes losing at WrestleMania 39, and surprisingly it wasn’t a direction pushed by either Vince McMahon or Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
WrestleMania 40 in April was a massive success for WWE for many reasons but none more so than Cody Rhodes being able to finally finish the story and become the WWE champion. While The Rock’s involvement heightened the interest, it was his loss to Reigns the year before that added more weight to the rematch.
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Rhodes coming up short at WrestleMania 39 was one of the biggest surprises in WWE history since The Undertaker’s legendary streak was ended by Brock Lesnar. Over the last year, there has been much speculation about who made the call on that decision and most believe it was probably WWE founder and former CEO Vince McMahon.
However, it seems like it was not him, or even the current head of creative Paul Levesque. In a new edition of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the veteran reporter revealed that it was actually Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman who pushed for the Tribal Chief to get the win at last year’s event.
Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman were reportedly the voices pushing for Cody Rhodes to lose at Wrestlemania 39
“Reigns and Paul Heyman convinced both Vince McMahon and Paul Levesque last year to change the finish because they believed it would be more beneficial in getting people like Jey Uso and Solo Sikoa over as well as many others and make Rhodes a bigger star to hold off the switch for a year.”
In hindsight, they weren’t wrong. Uso and Rhodes had a great year since and became bigger stars in the process. Sikoa actually regressed since ‘Mania 39, however, there has been a renewed effort to bolster his role in the weeks since this year’s event.
Nevertheless, it is a big surprise and was very much about Reigns trying to help out his family as it was about boosting Rhodes and the company by holding on to the title last year.
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