Report: The reason why WWE has changed main event plans for WrestleMania 42

As seen during the January 9th 2026 edition of WWE SmackDown, Cody Rhodes defended the WWE Championship against Drew McIntyre in a “Three Stages of Hell” match. McIntyre ended up winning the title after interference from Jacob Fatu.

WWE has reportedly changed main event plans for WrestleMania 42. Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com noted the following regarding the reason WWE went in a different direction…

“The way it was explained is that Paul Levesque [Triple H] took another look at the [Royal] Rumble-to-Mania planned direction and decided that doing a Rhodes vs. [Roman] Reigns match for the third time in four years, and spending months building that direction, would lead to audience fatigue. Rhodes brought up McIntyre at the same time and asked for advice on whether it made sense, and if he would be more valuable chasing than defending, and eventually decided that chasing would be better.”

Meltzer added that the current two ideas for the WWE Title match at WrestleMania are McIntyre vs. Cody vs. Fatu, or McIntyre vs. Cody as a singles match. At this time, Roman Reigns is said to be “the odd man out of the WWE title picture.”