Nick Khan says WWE never changed The Rock’s WrestleMania 40 plans.
The road to WWE WrestleMania 40 in 2024 featured Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes briefly giving up his main event opportunity to face Roman Reigns to The Rock. However, the promotion reverted to Reigns vs. Rhodes after massive fan backlash. Instead, a tag team match was booked for Night 1 with Reigns and The Rock taking on Rhodes and Seth Rollins.
However, speaking at SBJ On Stage ahead of WrestleMania 42, WWE President Nick Khan claimed the plans never changed and what happened at WrestleMania 40 was always the plan.
“By the way, the plan was always how it ended up in Philly two years ago. Sometimes — it’s a pre-determined outcome in wrestling. You want to throw the fans off, you want to let things bake, and then, boom, it ends up the way that we wanted it to end up. It never changed,” the WWE president said.
“That was just online rumors and gossip that we were changing — it never changed. We convinced Dwayne Johnson to come back. He’s on our board of directors. It was a tag team match. He’s about the same age I am, so two years ago let’s say he was 50, he was obviously in phenomenal shape, he did everything that we asked of him and then some. But that was always the result we were looking for,” Nick Khan said. [H/T F4WOnline]
Nick Khan’s claim contradicts WWE’s and The Rock’s previous admission
While Nick Khan claims plans never changed, WWE released a WrestleMania 40 Behind the Curtain documentary, admitting how fan backlash forced them to pivot back to Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes at the PLE. The Rock even said the original plan was for Roman Reigns vs. The Rock, but they were forced to pivot to having Cody Rhodes in the match.
Fans also pointed out the contradiction on X/Twitter, saying Nick Khan doesn’t want to accept that the promotion listens to online criticism. Speaking on the same stage, the WWE President claimed the company does not alter creative plans in response to backlash on social media.
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