The Rock‘s transformation from fan favorite to villain on the journey to WrestleMania 40 was swift. Seemingly poised to headline the event against Cody Rhodes, The People’s Champ found himself despised by WWE fans, viewed as attempting to wield his corporate power for a greater role ot the Grandest Stage of Them All.
Instead of Roman Reigns and The Rock fighting, which WWE never officially announced, the two Bloodline leaders will team up to face Seth Rollins and Rhodes in the main event of night 1 of WrestleMania. Reigns and Rhodes will then battle for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship on night 2.
It reflects a new era where storylines are increasingly shaped by fan input, a trend embraced by Triple H, who heads WWE’s creative team. When questioned about altering the WrestleMania storyline involving The Rock, The Game emphasized in an interview with ESPN the need to make adjustments on the fly, acknowledging that they call audibles every week.
Now it’s a different time, and the way I do things is slightly different. My career, I learned from being here, but there were things along the way that I always thought I would do differently. In this time now, I get to make those calls and with a large team of people. Whether people will want to believe it or not, I think we were sort of looking at this as here’s where we’re going to go to get this started and it has the opportunity of going this way or that way.
We always have to call audibles every single week. Everything you do is dependent on reactions. That’s what we do as an industry. … The beautiful thing with this group and with Cody and Roman and Rock especially, everybody’s got their ear to the ground. … And then we all just get together and figure the s–t out.
WWE’s pivot for WrestleMania created a red-hot storyline involving their top stars, coupled with The Rock’s return to a heel persona not seen in two decades, adding a refreshing twist. If similar situations happen in the future, it seems Triple H will evaluate all options if it’s best for business.
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