When Cody Rhodes met Roman Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania 40 near Los Angeles, it had all the makings of a typical feel-good moment, the kind that the event has become famous for over four decades. The hero overcomes the odds, defeats the seemingly invincible villain and sends the huge crowd home happy.
Of course that’s not what happened. Reigns held onto his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship thanks to assistance from other members of The Bloodline, and WWE has managed to get an entire additional year out of Cody’s quest to “finish the story.”
It was a surprise to see Reigns with his hand raised at SoFi Stadium because world champs who head into WrestleMania rarely leave with their title. Right?
When it comes to WrestleMania main events, that’s true. Over the course of the event’s history, there have been 33 main event matches (defined here as the final match on the card only, or the last match on each night since it became a two-night affair) with WWE singles world championships on the line. Of those bouts, the title has changed hands 23 times, or just under 70%.
That trend was even more pronounced in the earliest days of WrestleMania history. Through WrestleMania 2000, world championship challengers succeeded during main events at a clip of 75%, so retaining has become slightly more common over the last two-plus decades.
Interestingly, you’re more likely to keep a world championship around your waist if your title match appears earlier on the WrestleMania card. The overall rate of world title changes during the Showcase of the Immortals is 45 out of 78, or 57.7%. That means that the likelihood of world champs retaining during non-main event matches is 23 out of 45 — at 51.1%, world champions are actually tiny favorites to retain as long as the match doesn’t close the show.
(Note that there has been the occasional match that is hard to fit neatly into these stats, such as the title unification match between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38; we counted that as a world title change for these purposes.)
The full match order hasn’t been revealed for WrestleMania 40, but it’s possible that only night 2 will have a true world title main event, the rematch between Rhodes and Reigns. Three other singles world championships will be on the line, though, as IYO SKY, Rhea Ripley and Seth Rollins are all defending their titles. History suggests that as long as they don’t close night 1, they’d all be narrow favorites to retain; however SKY and Rollins are currently significant underdogs in the minds of oddsmakers.
When it comes to Rhodes, at least, the math is on his side. The numbers bear out that it would be even more surprising for him to lose two consecutive WrestleMania main events where he’s challenging for a world championship, so his fans can probably sleep a little more soundly on the night of April 6 with that in mind.
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