Not so often do things come together perfectly. After all, nothing or no one is perfect. But then you look at the events of WrestleMania 40 on Sunday night and think — if this wasn't perfect, it was maybe the closest thing to it. That's what Cody Rhodes winning the Undisputed WWE Championship over Roman Reigns felt like last night: perfection.
Out of all forms of entertainment, professional wrestling might be the most blemished. Voided of reasoning, its entire premise is nonsensical, warranting any and all criticism it inherits, as it is now overly exploited and continues to be with each passing year. And what's ironic about this exploitation is that knowing the WWE and its matchmakers have the ability to determine every outcome of their business, at least from a production standpoint — winners, losers, good guys, bad guys, champions — it's still far from perfect.
But last night it was — even if it almost wasn't just weeks ago.
Longtime WWE fans know that often times when the company has asked them to buy into something, the payoff either mediocrely lives up to the hype or not at all. That wasn't the case in Rhodes and Reigns II. Most also know that the WWE nearly completely altered the course for this year's WrestleMania main event, giving us something that, although we did want in The Rock versus Reigns, we didn't want at the expense of the current story being told with Rhodes, and even Reigns for that matter.
The new WWE era started well before WrestleMania 40
When the pandemic hit back in 2020, our lives were altered, leaving many to hit the reset button. The WWE, like a lot of businesses, was not excluded from this. A product that relied so much on the symbiotic relationship with its fans was separated from each other for a prolonged period. The product obviously suffered, but that at least made the WWE take chances. One of those chances was making longtime superstar Roman Reigns a heel.
Reigns' heel turn altered every course for the WWE over the next three and a half years. The Bloodline storyline between him and his real-life family members Jey and Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa carried the WWE into a new era that even though Paul “Triple H” Levesque said launched at the end of Night 2 of WrestleMania 40, can be argued started well before that.
Reigns' storyline was this era's equivalent to the Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince McMahon storyline from the Attitude Era, which carried the WWE from week to week back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But even Austin and McMahon never had a clear payoff. In fact, their eventual partnership that started at WrestleMania 17 is still considered to this day one of the worst creative decisions in company history. For Reigns and the Bloodline, there needed to be an ending, and not just a good one but a great one that matched the storyline itself.
Enter Cody Rhodes. The American Nightmare, who had gone off and made not just a name for himself outside of WWE but another company to compete against the WWE, was the perfect foil for Reigns.
Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes' stories needed each other
What makes Rhodes is his realness. His story that he sought out to finish is one hundred percent real. No writer, producer, or agent came up with it. Rhodes, like a lot of wrestlers, had a goal to win the WWE Championship, but not just win it, win it for his father, the late Dusty Rhodes. That realness matches with Reigns' story.
Reigns and the Bloodline were likewise a real story. For Reigns, it was about chasing greatness and a long lineage of Samoans who had etched their names in professional wrestling history, continuing that legacy. And that's exactly what he did, including adding his cousins Jimmy and Jey Uso and Solo Sikoa as well. Both Reigns and Rhodes' stories began with family but end with overcoming stigmas.
Rhodes is now famous for becoming undesirable to undeniable. The same can be said about Reigns. The Tribal Chief may have had the luxury over Rhodes in the company desiring him all these years, but the fans, however, had little desire for him. The former Big Dog, even in all his previous WrestleMania main events and title runs before he became the Tribal Chief, could be considered a failure. He may have been the top bill, but he wasn't on top of the wrestling world like he is now. Now he's considered a game changer of the entire industry.
“There's a few guys that come along that you'd say ‘changed the industry,'” Levesque said at the post-WrestleMania 40 press conference. “Roman Reigns has changed the industry. He is that good. What he did tonight with Cody Rhodes, he got to the end of this chapter. He's now going to start a new chapter that's going to blow everyone's mind.”
That's why Reigns needed a rightful successor to his story. Granted, the WWE has a mighty task ahead of them now at attempting to make a new, engaging long-term storyline. Nevertheless, Rhodes was the right answer to the question of who could and should succeed Reigns. Again, you needed someone who had just as compelling of a story to tell, with a reason to take the title from Reigns just as Reigns had to keep it.
“One of the biggest fears I had was if I finished the story, I'd have nothing left,” Rhodes said at the post-WrestleMania 40 press conference. “But the moment Charles Robinson hit three, I realized I just leveled up.”
After waiting a year to see it finally culminate, when perhaps most thought it never would after Rhodes lost at last year's WrestleMania, not just one but two stories wrote themselves out perfectly at the end of WrestleMania 40. It was one of the best creative decisions WWE has made in a long time, that includes last year's decision to hold off on the conclusion.
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