WrestleMania 40: Cody Rhodes Reportedly Warned WWE About Negative Reaction to Dwayne Johnson vs Roman Reigns When Plans Changed

The wrestling community experienced a mixed bag of emotions when it was revealed that Cody Rhodes would be taking a step back to make way for Dwayne Johnson. On the 02/02 episode of SmackDown, it was announced that Johnson would be challenging Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40. This has led to an outcry from the fans as they wanted to see the American Nightmare’s story come to its natural conclusion. While fans are angry, it looks like Cody Rhodes did issue a warning to WWE.

Cody Rhodes warned WWE that “audience wouldn’t react well”

According to a report by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select, the former AEW star decided to go with WWE’s decision as he has earned a reputation of being a “company man.” While he has respect for WWE and the decisions that they make, he had reportedly warned the company about the potential backlash from the fans. The conversation between him and WWE happened a few days before last week’s SmackDown.

Sapp revealed that Rhodes was assured that he would be working with Roman Reigns following the 2024 Royal Rumble. The original plan was to have Seth Rollins vs CM Punk and Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns for WrestleMania 40. Despite WWE giving him multiple assurances, the creative team decided to go a different direction. There could be two reasons why WWE decided to change directions.

One is that CM Punk will be out of action for a few months because of the injury he sustained at the 2024 Royal Rumble. Second, it has been heavily rumored that Johnson’s terms & conditions before joining TKO Group’s Board of Directors included that he wanted to fight Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40.

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While it looks like Cody Rhodes’ words proved true, things might have gotten out of hand.

The WWE Universe come together to drive change

While fans have expressed their support for Cody Rhodes, things have gotten out of hand. For instance, fans have hijacked the comment section of Johnson’s social media posts. They have called out the Hollywood star for taking Rhodes’ WrestleMania spot. Apart from that, his daughter, Simone Johnson a.k.a Ava Raine had received death threats which prompted her to delete her X (formerly Twitter) account.

Apart from that, Sami Zayn received backlash from fans after he tried to give fans a reality check. He had tweeted that the events happening around us were more tragic. Sure, fans would want to use pro wrestling as an escape mechanism. This tweet of his received massive backlash, and he ended up deleting the tweet. Have fans taken things too far? What do you make of the new information that has come to light with Rhodes warning WWE?Let us know in the comments below

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