News regarding WWE’s decision to have The Rock take Cody Rhodes’ spot against Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania 40

As seen during the February 2nd 2024 edition of WWE Smackdown, Cody Rhodes seemingly stepped aside for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to face Roman Reigns at WWE Wrestlemania 40. In a post on F4WOnline.com’s message board, Dave Meltzer brought up how the Vince McMahon sex trafficking lawsuit, WWE canceling creative plans for Brock Lesnar, and CM Punk getting injured were factors in plans being changed…

“Dwayne pushed super hard for it. Read last week’s issue and this week’s. The card changed when Punk & Brock were out and all the dominoes fell. Dwayne already wanted it and they felt they now needed it as well. Felt this was better to change the news flow away from Vince.

Cody was the plan. Dwayne was going to face him later, maybe next year’s Mania, maybe Saudi. Sh*t happens with Vince and Punk, the Vince thing ends up worse than they thought and they changed the plan. I literally didn’t know until yesterday that it could change and then I was told it’s under lock. But 100% it was Punk vs. Seth and Cody vs. Reigns until Punk got hurt.”

Rock vs. Reigns has not officially been announced but a Wrestlemania “kickoff” press event is scheduled for next Thursday night in Las Vegas, NV and will be steaming on Peacock.