By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer
The People’s Champion vs. The Corporate Champion. Good vs. Bad. Fan favorite vs. Evil Overlord. The Final Boss vs. The Face Of The Company.
Is it really that simple when it comes to what WWE is trying to do with The Rock and Cody Rhodes? Maybe. But if it is, can someone please explain to me what the hell that was on Friday’s episode of Smackdown?
Don’t get me wrong. The segment between Rock and Cody was fascinating to watch – and that takes into consideration that we use the word “fascinating” far too often these days. It was compelling television. Unsettling. Weird. Maybe entirely ambiguous while maybe not being ambiguous at all. The Rock came off like a complete head case, which was probably the point. A scary dude unhinged and obsessed with f—ing up the world of WWE’s most currently cherished superhero.
But … boy. I don’t know, man. At times, it felt like we were watching rehearsals for a community theater production, the actors deciding they weren’t going to stop repeating themselves until they got to where they thought they needed to be. Other moments, The Rock and Cody’s exchange felt eerie, honest, confusing – as though they were very good actors knowing they had to play bad actors for the sake of the scene. It all added up to one big …
… What the hell was that?
The Rock doesn’t want Cody’s title; The Rock wants Cody’s soul. The Rock wants to make Cody’s wildest dreams come true. The Rock has a spot reserved for Cody where his superstardom could be transcendent, set up his family for generations of wealth, leave pro wrestling for the top-most tier in entertainment. The Rock sees something in Cody that has yet to be tapped. The Rock wants Cody to stand for all the things he’s fought against since returning to WWE. The Rock wants Cody to turn his back on his fans.
There are two ways to digest their exchange on Friday night – one, in storyline; the other, in real life. We’ll take the latter first. The will he/won’t he stories that have been obsessed over when it comes to The Rock and WrestleMania 41 have been some of the most fun things to follow in Pro Wrestling News ever since the circus left Philadelphia last April. In the glow of the 40th Mania, we all thought it was a no-brainer that he’d be back in the fold at about this time this year. Maybe he’d work with Roman Reigns. Maybe it’d be Cody. We weren’t quite sure how or why, but he knew he’d be there.
But then that changed. Reports surfaced that backstage, The Rock wasn’t worked into any Mania plans. It turned out he had Hollywood things to do around the time he’d be asked to get into Mania mode. There were two working plans for what might happen next – one if The Rock decided to come around and one if he didn’t. He randomly showed up at the end of the Bad Blood PLE last year for no real good (or explained) reason. Even after his last-minute addition to Smackdown on Friday, there were some outlets reporting that writers didn’t initially know he was going to be in attendance.
And so what we got was … sort of odd. It almost felt like even if The Rock won’t work WrestleMania, he took to heart the criticisms that came about in the wake of his appearance on the first Raw of 2025. The footage of him being best buds with Cody didn’t sit right with some and for those who care about these types of kayfabe things, the criticisms were probably valid. As a result, he felt compelled to keep the story with Cody alive by working their newfound friendship into the latest twist in the tale. Was this always going to be the plan? Us simpletons will never know for sure, but the way things came off Friday makes me think it was not always going to be the plan. Only time has the answer for what happens next.
That, of course, leads us to the former – digesting The Rock and Cody’s exchange in storyline. If I had my way, I’d pull the trigger on a Cody heel turn. Why not? (OK, I know why not: Merchandise money, but let’s ignore that for now). Those last few days of Cody in AEW – where the fans decided they had enough of him and Cody leaned into straddling the line between good and evil – were a ton of fun. He can play the role awfully well and I’m not sure there would be a better time to get the most out of it than where things lie currently. The Rock won’t be around forever. Cody won’t be this beloved forever. You want a shock to the system? Turning Cody into a bad guy should do the trick.
Now, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it does lead me to wonder what all of this means for the next few beats in the Cody/Rock story. It can’t just be as simple as Rock shows up this weekend at Elimination Chamber, Cody turns him down, and we all go on our merry way … right? If all of this past Friday’s segment turns out to be much ado about nothing, I have to think we’re all going to start to lose our patience for The Rock (and even if that’s the point, I’d rather lose my patience for him for other reasons). It’s one thing to flirt with the wrestling business. And it’s even another to secure yourself at the head of a board of a company who owns the biggest wrestling company in the world. But the sporadic toe-dipping The Rock seems to be doing can turn out to be a net negative if you abuse that option.
All of this is to say, I don’t know if I actually liked or disliked the 30-some-odd-minutes reserved for Cody and The Rock on Friday’s Smackdown and I don’t know if a fan not knowing if he or she actually liked it was or is WWE’s desired outcome. It was ominous, sure. And yeah, it had its share of effectiveness, if for no other reason than I’m sitting here three days after it happened and I’m still wondering what to make of it. But it didn’t promise an immediate future for the Rock/Cody story beyond Elimination Chamber. That, to me, makes some of all this feel empty. I don’t know what to trust. I don’t know what to believe in. I was sort of excited to see Cody vs. John Cena at Mania, if that’s what they wanted to do. If we’re making a complete left turn just because The Rock said so, my enthusiasm has taken a hit.
We all know that can change. The road is long between February 24 and April 19. By the time Mania comes around, my attitude could be one million percent opposite of where it is now, coming out of Friday night’s promo. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing will be decided by what comes next – and that’s common when it comes to key developments in pro wrestling storytelling. As for now, if The Rock truly wants Cody’s soul, maybe he should consider coming around to take it far more often than those few days he wakes up and decides it’s time to go to work in a wrestling ring.
Or, at the very least, more often than just this coming Saturday night in Toronto.
It’s not compelling to me because I’ve always found the Heel-in-Charge storyline dynamic to be completely asinine. The only time it ever worked for me at all was when HHH & Steph mangled it with the “what’s best for business” gimmick. They came off well, as sadistic manipulators. Vince and Rock? They just sound like assholes.
That said, I rather hope that Cody goes along with it and hits heel mode because I think he’s gotten boring at the moment. If they wanted to keep him face, then Owens should have beaten him and let recovering the title be this years Wrestlemania moment.
To that end, I still think it’s possible we’ve been getting swerved this whole time, ie: KO was right all along and THAT is why Cody and Rock are “friends”. This new thing throws a wrench into it but that doesn’t mean none of the above is true.
I think some potentially mind-blowing things might be coming to the fore. If they aren’t, that’s kinda meh, but they learned how to pivot last year with Rock, so I’m not too concerned. Last WM was a blast because of what they had to pivot on. So who knows?
And now that I just said that… what if this whole time Roman isn’t really “good”? What if they’ve been dragging Cody into the Bloodline behind the scenes this whole time? What if the Rhodes family and the Rock’s/Roman’s are becoming one LARGE version of the Bloodline? That means Zayn is with them, that means Jay is with them… that means KO was right.
That would be CRAZY to make work but now I kinda want to see if that’s at least in part what they are working on.