The Rock Reportedly Pushed for WrestleMania XL Main Event, Backstage Notes on His Creative Direction & Influence

– As previously reported, Cody Rhodes will not be finishing the story this year at WrestleMania XL. Cody Rhodes declared as such last night on WWE SmackDown before bringing out The Rock, who stared down Roman Reigns, teasing an eventual matchup. Earlier this morning, WWE announced that The Rock and Reigns will face off at the WrestleMania XL Kickoff event in Las Vegas, Nevada, where it seems that The Rock vs. Reigns match will be officially announced. PWInsider has a backstage update on how this came about.

According to the report, numerous sources within WWE revealed that the decision for the company to go with The Rock vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 was a push made by The Rock to be part of the main event, and the decision was reportedly backed by TKO Group Holdings executives. While Cody Rhodes won the men’s Royal Rumble match last weekend, setting up a rematch with Reigns and a chance to finally finish the story, some sources are said to believe The Rock made the move as a way to “save WrestleMania” now that CM Punk is off the card due to injury, and Brock Lesnar is out of the WWE picture for the foreseeable future.

PWInsider also notes that other sources believe that The Rock making the push for the main event was inevitable due to his $30 million stock options payout as a recently announced board member for WWE parent company TKO. The Rock’s payday is partially contingent on him hitting certain financial milestones. One of those milestones was expected to be Johnson making an in-ring return this year, and Johnson reportedly pushing for the match sooner rather than later was because the global superstar believed that Reigns vs. The Rock was a bigger attraction for WWE.

With Johnson now being a board member, his standing as a top Hollywood star, and the backing of TKO CEO Ari Emanuel, WWE President Nick Khan, and others, this resulted in The Rock vs. Roman Reigns being booked as the main event bout for WrestleMania 40. The match is reportedly viewed as a bigger mainstream attraction for the company that will help WWE regain some positive momentum in light of recent events, specifically the lawsuit by former WWE employee Janel Grant.

PWInsider reports that a WWE source compared this movie by The Rock to his attempts to take over the creative side of the DC Universe at Warner Bros. While The Rock was originally expected to portray the character of Black Adam opposite Shazam in the planned Shazam movie, those plans later changed with The Rock leading his own solo film as Black Adam. The Rock wanted the character to eventually face Superman and attempted to go over the heads of the executives to their superiors to get ideas approved. It’s alleged that Johnson wanted to gain control of the entire DC film franchise, but that was jettisoned following Black Adam‘s poor box office performance. Warner Bros. later named James Gunn and Peter Safran as the new heads of DC Studios.

PWInsider notes that the decision regarding WrestleMania XL to take Cody Rhodes out of the main event was not made out of malice, but it was reportedly done out of the belief that The Rock is the best idea to make the company money right now and out of respect to his new position as a board member for TKO. Also, the move was done to reportedly grant The Rock more political power and to show TKO and Endeavor’s faith in his involvement with the company. Additionally, one source within the company said that WWE Chief Creative Officer Triple H (aka Paul Levesque) would “lose” a “power struggle with Johnson at this point” if he were to wage one right now.

With regards to who will be representing The Rock creatively in WWE, the report says that former WWE Creative member Brian Gewirtz, who worked for The Rock at Seven Bucks Productions, will be in the mix for The Rock’s creative process moving forward. Some sources reportedly believe that Gewirtz will be physically involved for the major shows going forward. It’s also stated that Gewirtz could be at events as a “Plan B” in the event of TKO needing to pivot the company’s creative direction with a “Johnson-backed creative team” later on.

One WWE talent is said to have privately told PWInsider that they wondered if Johnson headlining the show was the plan along, but if he had not committed to late in the game. The same talent also wondered what would’ve been done with CM Punk had he not suffered an injury, and if his injury prevented Punk from learning that he also would’ve lost that WrestleMania main event slot. Before Punk’s injury, he was rumored to be facing Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 40. So, it’s possible that matchup could’ve been a headliner planned for Night 1.

As for Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins, PWInsider reports that the plan is to have the two face each other at WrestleMania 40. This is despite Rhodes winning the Royal Rumble again, the first man in 26 years to pull off the feat in back-to-back years. Also, he’s on the cover of WWE 2K24, which has a story mode build around players “finishing” their own story and inspired by Cody needing to “finish the story.” Cody has been battling for the last year to finally “finish the story,” and he finally gets the opportunity to do so, but he gives it up.

PWInsider says some people within WWE are openly talking about Cody Rhodes winning the World Heavyweight Title and then challenging the winner of the main event of WrestleMania 40 at SummerSlam in a title unification bout. Whether or not that actually happens in the hope of Cody finally finishing the story remains to be seen.

WrestleMania 40 is scheduled for April 6-7 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It will be broadcast live on Peacock.