Report on what Triple H initially wanted to do with Cody Rhodes and The Bloodline leading into WWE 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. Despite this, Cody ended up choosing Reigns as his opponent for Wrestlemania at the Kickoff event.

Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com noted in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Paul “Triple H” Levesque reportedly “scrambled behind the scenes to keep Rhodes at all times.” According to Meltzer, Levesque initially had an idea to do an injury angle where The Bloodline would attack Cody on the February 2nd Smackdown. Reigns vs. The Rock was then going to be announced for Wrestlemania during the Kickoff event but Cody would come back. The belief is that Cody “was never going to get screwed” and would have still gotten his match against Reigns at some point.

It was said that things changed with CM Punk getting injured and Rollins needing an opponent for Wrestlemania. Meltzer stated that WWE “didn’t want Reigns doing the angle to injure Rhodes, since if they did that angle, it would make no sense to do Rollins vs. Rhodes.”

Meltzer wrote the following in regards to Cody’s segment with Rollins from the January 29th edition of RAW…

“The storyline on the 1/29 Raw where Rollins tried to talk Rhodes into taking the match with him on that night wasn’t 100 percent to set up that match, although it was clearly probable and very quickly was the plan. We’re told it was a backup plan designed to provide for an alternative regarding Johnson’s pitches of what he wanted because things were constantly changing.”