The Rock "Pushed Hard" To Replace Cody Rhodes, WrestleMania Match Wasn't Planned A Few Days Ago

The Rock will headline WrestleMania 40 against Roman Reigns, with it being revealed on SmackDown last night that Cody Rhodes was stepping aside and not using his Royal Rumble victory to go after the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.

WWE’s WrestleMania plans have been up in the air ever since CM Punk’s injury, with reports stating this week that many pitches had been put in place, with the plans getting finalised only recently. Despite the original plan being Rhodes vs. Reigns, it looks as though The Rock had some influence in changing up the main event scene.

According to Dave Meltzer on an F4W Forum, The Rock was the one who “pushed hard” to get involved and face Reigns.

"Dwayne pushed super hard for it. Read last week's issue and this week's. The card changed when Punk & Brock were out and all the dominoes fell. Dwayne already wanted it and they felt they now needed it as well. Felt this was better to change the news flow away from Vince. Cody was the plan. Dwayne was going to face him later, maybe next year's Mania, maybe Saudi. Sh*t happens with Vince and Punk, the Vince thing ends up worse than they thought and they changed the plan. I literally didn't know until yesterday that it could change and then I was told it's under lock. But 100% it was Punk vs. Seth and Cody vs. Reigns until Punk got hurt.”

It was a last minute change based on this report, which is why WWE added a segment this past Monday where a match between Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins was heavily teased.

H/T WrestlingNews.Co