The Rock vs Roman Reigns, a dream-match that crosses generations and family-lines as two of the biggest icons in WWE history go head-to-head at WrestleMania! Surely a match that has caused every wrestling fan to explode from excitement and ignite the wrestling industry into a frenzy, right? Well that’s not the reality.
The reality is that under the spectacle is an upset fanbase, a thinly veiled PR stunt and the shattered bones of WWE’s own foot that they decided to shoot at point blank. So why has WWE pivoted direction? The answer likely finds itself in the context of the past two weeks.
WWE has been through one of the most significant fortnights in the companies long and rocky history, with the huge $5 billion deal with Netflix being overshadowed by Janel Grant’s lawsuit that implicated Vince McMahon and various top names within the company’s corporate and even on-screen talent side in a slew of horrific allegations involving Sexual Abuse and Sex Trafficking.
Outside of the horrendous implications this has on the safety of women in wrestling and the matter of how far the rot goes within the corporation, WWE and their parent company TKO have suffered a negative PR cataclysm that has put the company under heavy public scrutiny. The Royal Rumble on Saturday, whilst not spectacular, at least laid out a solid path that had been built up over the past couple of months, with the Women’s Royal Rumble winner Bayley set to face IYO SKY and Cody Rhodes last eliminating CM Punk to win the Men’s Rumble for the second time in a row and get retribution against Roman Reigns and dethrone the Tribal Chief.
That was until this Friday, where Cody Rhodes seemingly forgot any and all character motivations and storyline beats and gave up a guaranteed WrestleMania main event to let The Rock have a one-on-one showdown with Roman Reigns. It was a bizarre choice, one made more bizarre by Cody saying in no uncertain terms that he only wants to win Roman Reigns’ WWE Undisputed Universal Championship, which serves as a huge narrative roadblock if they were to have Cody fill the role CM Punk was to have before his triceps injury of facing Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania.
The face-off between The Rock and Roman Reigns was cool, however WWE fans, at least in the online space, have seen beyond the wow-factor of this face-off, an example of which being WWE’s official YouTube video of The Rock and Roman’s segment receiving 300k dislikes (with only 85k likes). The general online discourse has reflected this with videos and tweets highlighting anger and disgruntlement towards WWE’s pivoting dominating the IWC.
It does beg the question as to why WWE have decided to change course so strongly to a Rock and Reigns programme specifically for WrestleMania, instead of delaying that match and running with the planned story. One potential answer could be found in The Rock himself, and his new position as a TKO board member. Mike Johnson from PWInsider said that “multiple sources concurred” that the change “was a push by The Rock to move into the Mania main event, backed by top TKO Group Holding [executives]”.
Johnson also added that the TKO Board of Directors, which includes The Rock as well as Ari Emanuel and Nick Kahn, felt that they decided to go with the Roman vs Rock match as the main event because in their view “it would be a greater attraction for the mainstream [than Cody vs Roman] and also help push some positive momentum for the company”.
An interesting take away from Johnson’s report is the level of interference that’s been seen from the TKO Board over WWE. It appears that they directly overruled any plans WWE’s own creative may have had, and given The Rock’s position in the company, the People’s Champion has the ability to intervene whenever he wants if it gets the support of TKO’s board.
Alarmingly, Fightful Select reported that sources they spoke said that the Rock was actually not just pushing to face Roman but that “he was pushing to win” the match. I have my doubts on the feasibility of this turning into reality, mainly because The Rock hasn’t been an active wrestler in a long time and that a run with the belt would be the worst possible way to end Roman’s run. However it seems that WWE have decided their course, with a big press event scheduled for February 8th in Las Vegas which will likely be where this match is made official.
What is unanswered is the fate of Cody Rhodes, who has once again been pulled off track to finishing his story, this time in the most egregious fashion. Reports suggest that Cody will face Rollins for the belt, which as said previously causes some narrative headaches and results in Rollins’ title feeling like a consolation prize rather than a world title.
Another clash with Reigns will probably happen at a later event, perhaps at another WrestleMania, however even if fan support pushes the company into turning the match into a triple threat like with Daniel Bryan in 2014, this attempt at pushing “positive momentum” has caused heavy damage to the well-crafted narrative of Rhodes’ story, and serves as a reminder of the company doing whatever it can to change the news cycle away from Vince McMahon’s litany of allegations.
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