Why WWE fans are furious with The Rock after plans for WrestleMania main event are revealed in shocking Smack Down showdown
- Fans slam The Rock after he takes Cody Rhodes place in WrestleMania headline
- The Rock looks set to face Roman Reigns at WWE’s biggest event of the year
- Rhodes had been expected to challenge Reigns after Royal Rumble victory
WWE fans have directed their anger at The Rock after it was revealed he’ll be challenging Roman Reigns at WrestleMania at the expense of Cody Rhodes.
After Rhodes’ victory at last weekend’s Royal Rumble, he was expected to face Reigns in Philadelphia later this year to ‘finish his story’ and finally capture the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship.
It would be the culmination of an 18-month story, that started with the American Nightmare’s challenge to Reigns at last year’s WrestleMania. A match, where Rhodes ultimately came-up short thanks to interference from The Bloodline.
Twelve months on, and Rhodes’ revenge was fully in sight, as he became the first man in 25 years to win back-to-back Royal Rumbles and booked his place in the main event of April’s showpiece event.
However, on Friday night’s episode of Smack Down, Rhodes relinquished his chance to cash-in his Royal Rumble win and challenge Reigns, by stepping aside for The Rock.
Rhodes told his rival that he does intend dethrone him, just not at WrestleMania, and instead he spoke to someone else who the champion knows intimately.
That prompted The Rock to enter the fray as the ‘People’s Champion’ went face-to-face with his cousin, setting up their big money match at WrestleMania.
There had been much talk of a Rock vs Reigns match since the return of Dwayne Johnson to WWE at the start of January, where he hinted at taking on the ‘Head of the table.’
As fans pondered how they would get to the match, few would have guessed it would be in favor of Rhodes, and it’s not gone down well on social media.
‘This could be the biggest misstep in history at this rate, because we don’t want rock. We want Cody.’ One fan wrote.
Another was particularly scathing by saying: If you are GENUINELY on here thinking Rock/Reigns is the right call due to “the money, the business” then you should be banned from talking wrestling on here. It’s a horses**t calls and a slap in the face to 2+ years of people getting behind Cody. It’s awful.’
The complaints continued to reign in with one fan accusing of WWE of embarrassing the man who will be the cover star of their new video game WWE 2K24.
After his Royal Rumble win fans hoped Rhodes would ‘finish his story’ against Roman Reigns
They posted: ‘An awful call. The Rock doesn’t need this. Cody did. They made Cody look like a chump.’
While another just lambasted the whole segment, which is officially the most disliked video in the history of WWE’s YouTube channel – with over 200,000 dislikes.
‘Doing Rock vs Roman over Cody vs Roman is one thing, but the whole segment was AWFUL for Cody.’ The post read.
Rhodes is now expected to switch his attention to old rival Seth Rollins, and set up a match for his WWE Heavyweight title at WrestleMania.
The match would hark back to Rhodes’ return to WWE in 2022, when he was Rollins’ surprise challenger at WrestleMania in Texas.