The American Nightmare Cody Rhodes made history at WrestleMania 40 by winning the WWE Universal Championship. It was later revealed that the Cody vs Roman Reigns match-up was not on the cards initially. Roman’s cousin The Rock was supposed to face the champion at the Show of Shows in April. A month after the epic premium event, a report suggested that some of the company’s key figures didn’t want The Tribal Chief to lose his championship to the Hollywood star. This is what Dave Meltzer said, as per Ringside News, “Triple H and Roman Reigns were ‘pretty strong’ against the idea that The Rock would win the WWE championship at WrestleMania 40”.
The Rock played an instrumental role in Cody Rhodes’ storyline, emerging as the final boss. He joined forces with his cousin Roman Reigns in a quest to stop Cody from finishing his story. The duo faced off against a team of Cody and Seth Rollins in a tag-team match on the Night 1 of WrestleMania 40. Cody was unable to seal a victory in the tag-team affair after being hit with the People’s Elbow from The Rock. The loss led to several doubts amongst WWE fans about whether Cody would win the main event of the show against Roman Reigns on the premium live event’s second night. Fans were not disappointed as the American Nightmare beat Reigns to win the WWE Universal Championship for the first time.
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Competing in front of 1,45,000-plus fans seated at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns produced an absolute spectacle. Cody recently opened up about his main event with Roman Reigns. While talking on the Sports Illustrated Podcast, the American Nightmare revealed that Roman had a few words to share during their epic main event. “He [Roman Reigns] said ‘one more dance’ and I thought oh we are cruising into something and he just came so dialed in and so prepared,” Cody said.
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He added, “This was very much a big fight feel and it was kind of continued and snowballed into Roman and I are looking at each other in the ring and you can see it on camera.”
Coming back to the current WWE timeline, Cody Rhodes defeated AJ Styles in a WWE Universal Championship title defence at Backlash. The American Nightmare is next to face Logan Paul at the King and the Queen of the Ring pay-per-view this weekend.
