Many fans believed that WWE’s decision to change its plans for WrestleMania 39 – Night 2 last year, having Roman Reigns retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Title rather than Cody Rhodes defeating him, was a mistake.
Prior to the event, it was widely assumed that Reigns would lose the title to Rhodes and take a break from WWE. This occurred during a period when Vince McMahon was making changes to Raw’s creative direction, most notably the post-Mania episode.
Although McMahon was present at WrestleMania, Paul “Triple H” Levesque continued to oversee the creative aspects of the main roster. McMahon was thought to have influenced the decision to have Reigns retain the title at the event. However, at WrestleMania XL, Rhodes completed his story by defeating Reigns and becoming champion.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Reigns and Paul Heyman convinced McMahon and Triple H to change the finish.
The reason they chose to do so was “because they believed it would be more beneficial in getting people like Jey Uso and Solo Sikoa over as well as many others and make Rhodes a bigger star to hold off the switch for a year.”
Those in the company believe it was the right decision given the success of WrestleMania XL. This was also one of the reasons why many in WWE wanted Rhodes to face Reigns.
