– The Universal title picture heading into WrestleMania 40 has rightfully dominated headlines over the few days, with an assumed change in direction and perhaps postponement of Cody Rhodes’ quest to finish his story.
– While there is a new angle suggesting that WWE could change course once more or even turn this all into a work, a recent pwinsider.com report has more details on the backstage dynamics at play. The report noted that as of Saturday, WWE was expected to announce Roman Reigns vs. The Rock for WrestleMania and that it was a push by the Rock to move himself into the main event to “save” WrestleMania after both CM Punk and Brock Lesnar were taken off the card for separate reasons.
– Others believe that Dwayne Johnson would have pushed for this move regardless of Lesnar or Punks status considering he is now on the executive team for TKO and has a massive $30 million stock option that is contingent on certain milestones he must meet - one of them is believed to his return to the ring in 2024 and he wants to get this match done soon, more so on the biggest stage of the year. With Rock on the TKO Board of Directors and his mainstream appeal, his return was a move supported by Ari Emmanuel, Nick Khan and others as a way to bring some positive news and momentum to the company in light of the recent scandal involving Vince McMahon.
– While Rock is not on WWE’s creative team, this report suggests that his input and ideas are going to be strongly considered due to his experience and history of selling tickets, merchandise and even movies. Moreover, Johnson’s role on the Board gives him a significant amount of power and it is believed that even Paul “HHH” Levesque as Chief Content Officer and the head of creative would lose a power struggle with Johnson if it came down to that in the current space. Interestingly, it is believed that former SVP of Johnson’s production company and former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz, would be around to represent Johnson backstage and could even be relied on if Endeavor ever decided to pivot to away from the general WWE-led creative and instead towards something more "Rock-centric."
