Looks Like The Rock Is Back To Headline WrestleMania Against Roman Reigns This Year
Earlier today, news leaked that The Rock was spotted in Birmingham, Alabama for SmackDown, and everyone jumped into a frenzy over how he could factor into the show immediately - being Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes were scheduled to have their first faceoff in months tonight. Since Cody won the Royal Rumble and pointed right at Roman Reigns, it seemed like that was "the" match for WrestleMania, but The Rock teased challenging the Tribal Chief months ago, and this is wrestling, after all, so we knew anything was on the table.
In the main event segment, Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes traded some jabs back and forth (and Seth Rollins even caught a few shots from his former Shield brother)....
....and then Cody Rhodes spoke about how much he wants the championship that Roman holds. He pointed out that it's the championship that Bruno Sammartino held, the one that was ripped out of his father's hands, and the one he will win one day to finish the story.
Cody then revealed that after discussing it over with some council, he decided he wouldn't be facing Roman Reigns at WrestleMania this year. Someone who knew him very well would, though....
The Rock and Roman faced off as the crowd went nuts and chanted "Holy shit!" - and the show went off the air to that image….
I gotta be honest - this segment took me on a rollercoaster of emotions. I love The Rock as much as the next guy, but as a big Cody guy, this was kinda brutal!
I mean, Cody had to trot out the guy taking his main event this year! This comparison to the WrestleMania 9 "main event" is unfortunately too accurate….
Sure, Cody will get the Night 1 main event against Seth Rollins now….but it's just not the same.
They made a horrible decision to put Roman over Cody in the main event of last year's WrestleMania, in my opinion, and a lot of us have been counting down the days til they could right that wrong ever since. We'll get an all time dream match now in The Rock vs Roman Reigns, so it ain't all bad….you just can't help but feel the match is happening at the expense of Cody, and set up so Roman could retain and break the Hulkster's world title record.
It's silly, too, because The Rock vs Roman Reigns is truly one of the last matches in the world that a championship would make feel bigger. It's not about that at all - it's like The Rock vs Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 18 (which also had no championship on the line). People just care about the generational (and in this case, familial) story and clash. Roman's championship just makes the outcome more predictable in my eyes; just another reason Cody should've won last year, but I digress.
I wonder what effect CM Punk's injury had on these main event plans, if any. It seemed like Punk vs Rollins Night 1 and Rhodes vs Reigns Night 2 was the play after the Royal Rumble, but if The Rock has been signed for this match for a while - what were the plans with Cody? Would one of those matches just have been a triple threat? Can you even put the title on Cody if it's not THE title? Wouldn't that lessen the impact of his eventual real championship win? Maybe Priest can cash-in his Money in the Bank briefcase or something. What a mess. Again, I'm not mad (I love The Rock) - but dammit I'm conflicted!!!
Side note: I know The Rock is always in incredible shape, but I sure hope he's able to get in ring-shape, because he tore his quadricep and suffered a bad hernia in his last match over ten years ago, and seemed super blown up from a single People's Elbow on RAW recently….
Check out the last From The Top Rope I did with Carrabis - and stay tuned, because I think we're gonna need to do another real soon….