There was a widespread belief among many fans that WWE’s decision to alter its plans for WrestleMania 39 – night 2 last year by having Roman Reigns retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Title instead of Cody Rhodes defeating him was a mistake.
Prior to the event, it was widely speculated that Reigns would drop the title to Rhodes and take a break from WWE. This happened during a period when Vince McMahon was implementing changes to the creative direction, most notably to the post-Mania episode of Raw.
Although McMahon was present at WrestleMania, Paul “Triple H” Levesque was still responsible for overseeing the creative aspects of the main roster. It was believed that McMahon played a role in the decision to have Reigns retain the title at the event. However, at WrestleMania XL, Rhodes finished his story by going over Reigns and becoming the champion.
In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that it was Reigns and Paul Heyman who convinced McMahon and Triple H to change the finish.
The reason for that was “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.”
Those in the company feel it was the correct call due to the success of WrestleMania XL. This was also one of the reasons so many in WWE were pushing for Rhodes to face Reigns.
