An alternative plan for Cody Rhodes heading into WrestleMania has been revealed.

February 2nd saw confusion among WWE fans as all directions for Rhodes seemed to have changed. Despite winning the Royal Rumble for a second straight year, The American Nightmare stated that he would not be facing Roman Reigns at WrestleMania and would effectively relinquish his match for The Rock, who stood face to face with The Tribal Chief as the show went off the air.

Confusion and anger lit up social media for the next few days leading to the WrestleMania press conference, where Cody Rhodes interrupted Rock and Reigns’ segment and officially challenged Roman Reigns for Philadelphia. However, according to a new report, the original plan was for Rhodes to not be a part of the conference at all.

As reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Triple H’s idea was for Rhodes to be taken out by The Bloodline on the show where Rock made his return and would not make it to the press conference. Additionally, Rhodes was set to face Seth Rollins at Mania and would eventually get the match with Reigns shortly after the event:

The story is that Levesque scrambled behind the scenes to keep Rhodes at all times.

The Levesque idea was said to be to shoot an injury angle where the Bloodline would take out Rhodes on the 2/2 show in Birmingham. This would lead to the official announcement of Reigns vs. Rock at the press conference in Las Vegas. In the end Rhodes would return and he should win the title.

Rhodes was never going to get screwed and was always going to get a match with Reigns, but whether it would be at Mania or shortly after is not clear. But this was always an angle to build Reigns vs. Rhodes.

Where that is said to have changed is that Punk got hurt, leaving Rollins without an opponent. Levesque at the time made the move to put Rhodes in the spot, which is where the plan of Rollins vs. Rhodes for night one and Rock vs. Reigns for night two came. At that point, Rhodes was not going to face Reigns at Mania but still would after.

The Rock Warns Cody Rhodes
As was seen at the press conference, Rock slapped Rhodes when the confrontation mentioned family and got personal. Looking back on the event, The Rock put Cody Rhodes and the “Cody Crybabies” on notice as he and Reigns will be at SmackDown on February 16th.

According to a follow-up report, Cody Rhodes was informed of WrestleMania plans much earlier than expected.