It’s all but official that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson will face Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 40 this April.
The long-awaited dream match was practically confirmed during the final segment of last night’s SmackDown when 2024 Men’s Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes announced he won’t be facing Reigns on The Grandest Stage Of Them All for the second year in a row.
Rhodes went on to hint that one of the people he consulted regarding his shock decision was someone Reigns knew well, leading The Rock to make his entrance.
When Johnson entered the ring, Rhodes shook hands with The Great One before the two engaged in a brief private conversation. The American Nightmare then proceeded to leave the ring, leaving Johnson and Reigns to face off as the show went off the air.
While the company has yet to make the match official, the wording used to describe the segment on its website heavily implies it will be made sooner than later.
Plans Changed To Roman Reigns Vs. The Rock Just A Few Days Ago
In a post to the Wrestling Observer’s forum, The Board, Dave Meltzer provided some backstage insight into the sudden change of plans. He noted that the long-reported plan for Rhodes to face Reigns was still in place as of the Royal Rumble, but was later scrapped just two days later before Raw.
“It was the plan on that night (Royal Rumble). It was the plan the next day. It wasn’t the plan the day after that.”
In a separate post, Meltzer added that the move was ultimately made to move attention away from the ongoing Vince McMahon allegations.
This was in addition to both CM Punk and Brock Lesnar no longer being able to appear at the event as well as pressure from Johnson himself, who has been pushing for the match to take place at WrestleMania.
“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”
In regards to the promo that Reigns cut prior to the interruption by Rock, this is the latest directional change in WWE and has been influenced by the UFC.