At Thursday’s WWE WrestleMania 40 Kickoff event, Cody Rhodes announced he would challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title at WrestleMania 40.
It had been expected that WWE would announce The Rock vs. Reigns at the event instead, which is still planned, while Rhodes had been expected to challenge World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins.
Rock vs. Reigns was planned in secret last month when Dwayne Johnson was appointed to the TKO Board of Directors and part of the deal as he had strongly pushed for the match to happen despite Rhodes talking about for the last year that he wanted to finish his story.
Rollins’ Take
While speaking with FOX News, Rollins addressed the situation.
“It’s just what happens when powerful people exert their power,” Rollins said. “They just think they do whatever they want and get away with it, and that sucks. It just sucks. I don’t know any other way to put it. I guess it (resulted) in Cody getting what he wanted. We’ll figure out what’s next for the World Heavyweight title. But Cody said it best. It’s bulls—-. It feels pretty gross to me.”
Rollins brought up trying to sell Rhodes on the idea of facing him because he believes in the World Title and its potential to get bigger. He doesn’t fault him for wanting to finish his story.
History repeats
Rollins said that CM Punk dealt with the same issue with The Rock in 2013 when he returned and won the WWE Title at the Royal Rumble before headlining WrestleMania with John Cena. This was after he had headlined Mania with Cena the year before that.
“But yeah, now coming back, on the board of directors, like I said man, it feels like gross. I don’t like it. I feel like we gotta do something about it. Just don’t know what that next step is going to be.”
