How The Rock Felt About WWE WrestleMania 40 Main Event Plans Changing

Although fans will be getting Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 40, that ultimately wasn't the original plan and WWE made it obvious through an angle on the February 2 episode of SmackDown that Roman Reigns vs. The Rock was the original main event of WrestleMania. 

The angle on that episode of SmackDown saw Cody Rhodes step aside for The Rock despite the American Nightmare having won the Royal Rumble only days earlier. The planned Rock vs. Reigns match came about through negotiations over Dwayne Johnson joining the TKO Board of Directors and WWE reportedly originally planned to write Rhodes off TV with a Bloodline beatdown ahead of Cody "finishing the story" in the Autumn of 2024. CM Punk's injury caused WWE to scrap Cody being written off TV, though, as the company instead decided he would be Seth Rollins' opponent for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 40.

Following Rhodes stepping aside for The Rock, however, fans revolted against WWE and The Rock to such an extent that Dwayne Johnson decided Cody should main event WrestleMania 40 against Roman Reigns while The Rock would turn heel and team with Reigns against Cody and Seth Rollins in the main event of night one. 

Speaking to ESPN, former WWE writer and Senior Vice President at Dwayne Johnson's Seven Bucks Productions Brian Gewirtz noted even The Rock accepted WWE had to pivot to Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes for the WrestleMania main event.

"Would the fans be as adamant Cody needs to finish his story if he didn't win the Royal Rumble? Once he won the Royal Rumble, then I think there was a certain element of, 'Hey, don't screw with us now.' You can't dangle the Royal Rumble win and then take it away. And I think everyone, Rock included, was like, 'Yeah, they're right. We should continue this story as it naturally would play out if this were real life.' If this were real life and he won the Rumble and he didn't win last year's WrestleMania, there's literally no logical reason -- even though you could try to make one up -- why he wouldn't want to face Roman and win the title," Gewirtz stated.

Roman Reigns vs. The Rock, while not taking place at WrestleMania 40, still looks to be on the cards for a future WWE event. The Rock, however, looks set to be away from the company during the Summer of 2024 due to filming on his upcoming A24 movie.