The Rock wanted Cody Rhodes to lose his championship before WWE WrestleMania 41

At Elimination Chamber 2025, John Cena turned heel and aligned with The Rock to leave the WWE Universe in shock. After winning the men's Chamber match, Cena, alongside Rocky, attacked Rhodes, who had earlier turned down The Final Boss' proposal to join him.

Cena went on to defeat Rhodes at WrestleMania 41 to win his 17th WWE World Title in the main event of Night Two. While the veteran's heel turn was a massive event, things could've turned out a lot differently had WWE gone ahead with The Rock's initial pitch.

Initially, Rhodes vs. Cena for WrestleMania was being planned as a babyface vs. babyface match. But then, The Rock and former WWE writer Brian Gewirtz, who works for the Hollywood star now, were called in to shake up things.

On episode four of WWE: Unreal on Netflix, Gewirtz revealed that they pitched for Rhodes to turn down The Final Boss' offer at the Elimination Chamber, only for The Brahma Bull to book an impromptu championship match that would see Kevin Owens come out and win the title.

According to Gerwitz, the idea of a babyface Rhodes vs. babyface Cena felt a "little dry" to them. Hence, they wanted to "throw some controlled chaos" into the story. At that point, Owens had already feuded with The American Nightmare, with the two stars facing each other in a brutal ladder match at Royal Rumble.

Gerwitz also revealed that Kevin Owens winning the title at Elimination Chamber "wasn't the end goal." The idea was to do something seismic.

Why WWE had to move away from The Rock's idea

While WWE seemed to align with The Rock's idea of doing something big, the creative team had one issue. Writer Ed Koskey mentioned on the episode that he and other members of the team weren't completely on board with the idea of the championship changing hands close to WrestleMania.

Koskey, Triple H, and Bruce Prichard ultimately got on a video call, discussed the various outcomes, and came up with the idea of Cena turning heel.

Edited by Pratik Singh