Many people believed that WWE made a big mistake when it changed its plans to have Cody Rhodes defeat Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title in the main event of WrestleMania 39 – night 2 last year to have “The Tribal Chief” retain the title instead.
Going into that show, it was believed Reigns would drop the title to Rhodes and take time off. This was around the time that Vince McMahon started making changes to creative, most notably to the post-Mania episode of Raw and was at WrestleMania, despite Paul “Triple” Levesque being in control of main roster creative.
Some believed that McMahon was behind the reason to have Reigns retain the title at the show. At WrestleMania XL, Rhodes finished his story by beating Reigns and winning the title.
In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that “Vince did have the final say at the time. But it was noted Levesque agreed to that as well, and it would have happened either way.”
It was said both McMahon and Levesque were on board for Rhodes to return at the Royal Rumble from pec surgery and the title win.
Meltzer wrote, “A lot happened behind the scenes, with the key points being argued and eventually agreed by all parties it would be stronger a year later.” It was added that “While Vince did make the call, Levesque was on board with the call, and there were no significant issues with the decision.”
Meltzer added that he was told that it was absolutely not McMahon overruling Levesque by forcing the decision.
