“Was Problematic”: Dwayne Johnson’s Pick for Royal Rumble 2024 Revealed, Wasn’t Cody Rhodes

Winning Royal Rumble 2024 has been a pivotal moment in Cody Rhodes’ career, advancing him toward wrapping the Undisputed Universal WWE Championship belt to his waist as the first one to do so in his Bloodline. That said, this was not a desired outcome for everyone in the business. To illustrate, Rhodes’ arch nemesis, The Rock‘s head writer Brian Gewirtz, was a staunch opposer of Rhodes winning the Rumble for the sake of the rumored The Rock vs Roman Reigns’ main event in Mania.

Gewirtz has recently been vocal about The Rock’s WWE roles and segments. To add to this ongoing spree, the veteran revealed a bombshell truth about why he didn’t want Cody Rhodes to win the Royal Rumble 2024.

Brian Gewirtz advocated for not making Cody Rhodes win the Royal Rumble 2024 for a reason

Right after the Rock’s return in January, in San Diego, the idea of The Rock fighting his Samoan cousin for the belt has been scrutinized and given a thumbs up with a certain condition applied. The plan was to tease the match to check fans’ response to it and then lock or scrap the decision accordingly. According to Gewirtz, While The Rock vs Roman Reigns’ was still in a dilemma, putting Cody Rhodes’ over in the Men’s Royal Rumble almost confirmed his spot in the title picture. There’s no lie as tipping Rhodes against Seth Rollins for the WWE Heavyweight Championship, despite his victory over the 29 men, would rather be funny and nonsense.

Voicing his distaste over the Royal Rumble outcome, Gewirtz noted on the ‘Busted Open’ podcast, ‘‘The idea of Cody winning the Rumble, I thought, was problematic, in full transparency. I said, even in San Diego in that meeting, I thought the cleanest thing to do, if we’re booking Rock and Roman, is to have [CM] Punk win the Rumble and challenge [Seth] Rollins, just because there is a difference, storyline-wise, in my opinion, of Cody wanting to finish the story and having earned the right to finish the story by winning the Royal Rumble.’

He added the entire dynamic has gone in Rhodes’ favor as fans vehemently backed him up for earning the spot. But what was the potential reason for WWE not nixing Rhodes Rumble’s win despite Gewirtz’s strong disagreement? Let’s explore.

Why did WWE stick to the same Royal Rumble booking for Rhodes? 

Cody Rhodes has crossed each hurdle the company put forward in his path with grace to take himself to the position of a deserving contender. Starting from sustaining a soul-shattering loss during WrestleMania 39, to taming the Beast Incarnate in a grueling storyline, Rhodes tirelessly earned his stripes. So, quite understandably, the company didn’t want him to wait further to reap the fruits of his good work.

On the other hand, they also couldn’t ignore the loud pop The Rock garnered initially after teasing a cousin vs cousin showdown. So, possibly to keep both sides open for the time being, Triple H and the team didn’t alter the Royal Rumble result. Later, when the ideas of Cody Rhodes’ main events started to weigh more with the unbridled ‘WeWantCody’ movement, the company creatively moved out from the confusion and made up its mind about where to put its money.

What’s your take on Dwayne Johnson’s head writer revealing the reason behind his disagreement on Cody Rhodes’ Royal Rumble victory? Let us know in the comments.