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Coming out of the SmackDown after the 2024 Royal Rumble, there was one storyline above all on everybody's mind: Cody Rhodes challenging Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania 40.
… just kidding; while that seemed like the obvious match that the promotion spent the better part of 10 months building towards, with Rhodes getting his big moment with a win at the Royal Rumble, the “American Nightmare” instead seemingly handed the match off to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who still hasn't technically accepted the bout, but might as well have, considering the largely negative reaction he's received from fans online.
Discussing what went down on SmackDown on the first episode of his namesake show of the week, RAW commentator Pat McAfee explained how the main event segment shook out and why some fans are downright PO'd about its outcome.
“Wrestling fans are incredibly pissed off that Cody Rhodes was supposed to get the job done, finally. There is a title, the one that Roman Reigns has, that Dusty Rhodes was handed in Madison Square Garden and then taken away. Everything Cody has been doing, he's been trying to get the title back into his family, seemingly going to have to wait another few months while The Rock, the biggest star in the world, the biggest star on planet earth, will be taking on his cousin Roman Reigns for the ‘Head of the Table' conversation, which has been chatted about forever. I love Cody Rhodes, I love The Rock, I love Roman Reigns. I'm very torn on this entire thing. The internet was not happy,” Pat McAfee said via Fightful.
“I'm bummed out; I still don't know what's going to take place between now and WrestleMania. We're all pretty bummed out for Cody, but also very pumped this is a Rock-Roman situation. I don't know what's going to happen. Obviously, in WWE, you can never know what's going to take place. Certainly got people pissed off on a Friday.”
Goodness gracious, if Pat “Freakin'” McAfee is bummed out about Rhodes losing his spot to “The Great One,” you know WWE is down in a bad way.
Now, while fans are taking this situation incredibly seriously, the fact that a RAW commentator is discussing the “We Want Cody” movement really helps to highlight the worked-up effort by WWE to make Rhodes into a “martyr” in the pursuit of a Daniel Bryan-level babyface push. If not, and this is truly a shoot, it's hard to recall McAfee being as local about the lawsuit against Vince McMahon and all of the fallout since his resignation, which The Fed is doing everything in its power to keep out of the headlines with wacky promotional pushes two months before WrestleMania 40.
Becoming WWE Champion is why Cody Rhodes returned to WWE.
So why, you may wonder, is Cody Rhodes so determined to wrestle Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 when Seth Rollins is outright asking him for a rematch at the “Showcase of the Immortals?” Three words: the WWE Championship.
That's right, while Reigns is the only man in WWE history to hold the WWE Championship and the Universal Championship at the same time, he's the 147th WWE Champion, with the belt initially being won by Buddy Rogers in 1963 when it was called the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship.
Discussing the importance of the belt in his first promos back in WWE in April of 2022, Rhodes explained why he wanted to do what his father couldn't and “Finish the Story” of the Rhodes Family with WWE's legacy title.
“So if you'll humor me, let's all take a look at the Tron, if you will. Right there is my father, ‘The American Dream' Dusty Rhodes. It's so, it's so simple to say that's my father. But in reality. Yeah, he's a legend. Yeah, he's the son of a plumber. He's a common man. He's all those things to me. He was my hero,” Cody Rhodes shared on RAW via Cagematch.
“This photo was taken in 1977, Madison Square Garden. That very photo right there he is holding the championship belt that eventually Hulk Hogan would get his hands on, the Undertaker would get his hands on, the ‘Heartbreak Kid' Shawn Michaels on. Oh and uh Triple H too. And many other greats. So I'm going to tell you a quick story which made this all very simple to me. This photo. This very photo was on the mantel in my parent's bedroom until my dad's last day And as I, as I got hip to the industry, I worked up a little courage. And I remember I asked, and then I worded it very poorly. I said ‘I didn't know that you were a champion like Hulk Hogan.'
“And he looked at me with the same eyes that Liberty has, and he said, very stern and very patiently, he explained to me the champion's advantage. He said that he had won the match, but because it was by countout, he did not take home the championship belt. So I'm eight years old. What's a boy to do? Right then and there at eight years old, I knew not what I wanted to do, what I needed to do. I was going to win this championship belt. Right here! I was going to place it, I was going to bestow it into the hands of ‘The American Dream' Dusty Rhodes. And I would tell him, ‘Nobody can take it away from you now!'
“And there are many here tonight who have followed my journey. But for those who are new to it. Unfortunately, that dream died. It died right in front of me. That opportunity passed. That opportunity passed… Or did it? Yes. I cannot physically put that title belt into my father's hands. I cannot bestow upon ‘The American Dream' Dusty Rhodes, but I certainly can put it around the waist of ‘The American Nightmare.' With that in mind, the silence is broken, my intentions are clear. I've made them clear to all of you here. I stand before you, ready. Finally ready. And I'm going to do it. I'm going to give the distinction that my family has long since been denied. And I'm going to do it for you. I'm going to do it for me. I'm going to do it for my family. And I am going to do it for ‘The American Dream' Dusty Rhodes.”
At the time, fans hypothesized that Rhodes wouldn't leave a very sweet gig in AEW unless WWE was willing to offer him something big – much bigger than a match with Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 38, to be more specific. Taking a shot at the belt, his father could never win certainly fits that bill and, thus, makes his WrestleMania 40 snub all the more disappointing.
