At WrestleMania 39, Cody Rhodes will challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title in arguably the biggest match of his career.
For Rhodes, the match represents a shot at validation and redemption. Having left WWE after feeling he was being held back the star reinvented himself before returning at WrestleMania 38. Since then the American Nightmare has established himself as one of the biggest stars in the wrestling world. While in the ring, his victory in the men’s Royal Rumble match set up his date with destiny.
If the challenger is to climb to the top of the mountain and claim the championship that his Hall of Fame father never did, he must dethrone the most dominant champion of the modern era. Since returning to WWE following a short hiatus in 2020, Roman Reigns has unified the World Titles, holding the Universal Championship for a staggering 933 days and counting.
With their bout at WrestleMania 39 less than two weeks away, naturally, tempers were running high when they met face-to-face on Raw.
Rhodes began by interrupting Reigns and questioning what he meant when he described him as a problem. For Reigns it’s simple. The problem isn’t Rhodes specifically, it’s what he represents. Rhodes is a wrestler, while he is a fighter and a superstar. To illustrate his point, Reigns delivered a series of withering putdowns where he took aim at the challenger for “running away,” even claiming that he failed to get over when starting his own promotion, AEW.
“Let’s look at your track record. You didn’t want to do the Stardust thing, so what happened? You ran away. You ran away and started a company in a promotion you couldn’t get over in and then you ran away and came here.”
Roman Reigns Continues Bloodline Mind Games
Earlier in the night, Reigns had taken Jey Uso to one side to question whether he was still part of the family, to which Jey said that he was. This led to Reigns, via Paul Heyman telling The Usos they could leave, but Solo Sikoa needed to stay.
At the end of the main event segment involving Reigns and Rhodes, Sikoa got into an altercation with the Royal Rumble winner before being called off by the Tribal Chief.