Welcome to another eWrestlingNews Question of the Day!
Dave Meltzer recently tossed out the idea that The Rock wouldn’t be able to fit WrestleMania 41 into his schedule. Thankfully, that seems to have been debunked by Dwayne Johnson himself in a response to an Instagram comment.
But what if that ended up being true? After all the build to either The Rock versus Cody Rhodes or Roman Reigns, what if he was entirely off the table and WWE had to work on setting up a card that didn’t involve him whatsoever?
My question for you today is “What would you book for the big matches at WrestleMania 41 if you couldn’t include The Rock in any of them?”
Remember to answer with your response in the comments below.
As far as my answer…
I’ll keep saying this and repeating myself until I’m at a point where it can no longer happen in any other way, but I absolutely do not think it is the right idea for The Rock to fight Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. Not only do I not want to see The Rock win the title and hold it hostage for a year (because we know he wouldn’t drop it until WrestleMania 42 against Roman Reigns), but I also don’t think The Rock is the person that should beat Cody to begin with, nor do I think anyone is in a position to be a good enough challenger for Roman to just bypass that match.
It just feels like a waste to me, and I’m going to continue to champion the idea that Rock/Cody needs to happen either at Saturday Night’s Main Event or at Royal Rumble 2025, so they can get it out of the way and move on to something else. Ideally, Reigns/Rock at WrestleMania, and Cody fighting someone else for the WWE Championship. But at the very least, Rock winning the title from Cody at either of those two shows makes it a lot easier to not have the title M.I.A. for as many months in comparison to a full year.
So if by some reason The Rock was entirely off the table for WrestleMania, and I couldn’t get the Rock/Roman match in any capacity (with the title involved or not), then I would be scrambling to try to figure out what to do with Roman, in particular.
Cody is easy. He has two major options that can be explored rather easily. If there isn’t already something for John Cena to do, then that’s one route—but not at all my favorite. In fact, I think that would be a mistake to do at that show, as it should happen at a smaller event where it would be okay if Cody got booed.
But the real catch is that Rhodes should across the board be going up against Randy Orton, whether The Rock is available or not. I wholeheartedly think the best possible program for The American Nightmare, especially with the Undisputed WWE Championship on the line, would be for him to fight The Viper. It’s an easy story to tell with the mentor/protege angle, they have a lot of history together in Legacy, and a heel turn for Orton is certainly just one RKO out of nowhere around the corner.
But that leaves Roman without Rock, so what does he do?
I don’t think he should win the Royal Rumble and fight Gunther, nor have a rematch against Cody (obviously). Gunther needs to fight either Cena or Brock Lesnar, in my mind. So with the way things have been going as of late, if WWE did get word that Rock wasn’t available, I think the one and only option they would have for Roman would be to stretch out this thing with Solo Sikoa and do a Tribal Combat match for the right to call themselves Tribal Chief.
The thing that sucks about that is that I think that should happen at Crown Jewel. I feel like it just has to be Roman/Solo in singles competition at that show, setting up WarGames at Survivor Series to be Roman, Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso, and either one of or both of Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn, against Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa, and if there’s need for a fifth, Hikuleo or The Rock. But I expect The Rock to be ringside to offset Paul Heyman, rather than in the match, or the reason that the heels win by stepping in toward the end. I don’t think there’s room to go the next 7 months stalling Roman Reigns versus Solo Sikoa dragging that all the way out until WrestleMania.
They’d have to, if that were the circumstance. But I’m hoping that’s not the case.
What do you think? Drop your thoughts below!
