Report: Original Planned Winner Of Cody Rhodes Vs. Roman Reigns At WWE WrestleMania 42 Revealed

The rivalry between Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns was set to become a trilogy at WrestleMania 42, with WWE's plans as of late 2025 calling for the company's biggest weekend of 2026 to have the same main event as WrestleMania 39 and WrestleMania XL.

Another match between Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns was teased in the final moments of Survivor Series, and reports noted that Rhodes vs. Reigns III was the planned direction for WrestleMania 42. According to Ibou of Self Made, the original plan was for Cody Rhodes to simply hold the Undisputed WWE Championship until WrestleMania 42, where he would be challenged by Reigns.

The rubber match would then end with Roman Reigns on the winning side, according to Ibou, as Reigns would defeat Rhodes and leave WrestleMania as the new Undisputed WWE Champion.

"I'll get right to the Cody Rhodes-Mania report now. Here's the bottom line, the original direction was literally simply Cody is going to hold this deal until Mania and then Roman was going to go to Mania and beat him. That's what they were gonna do," Ibou said on Self Made Sessions.

Those plans ultimately changed, though, as Drew McIntyre defeated Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Title in a Three Stages of Hell match on the January 9 episode of SmackDown following interference from the returning Jacob Fatu.

Since SmackDown, it has been reported that Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns III is likely off the WrestleMania 42 card, but Ibou has claimed the match was actually still planned as of last week. The rubber match, according to Ibou, would likely be set up by Roman Reigns defeating Drew McIntyre for the Undisputed WWE Championship on the road to WrestleMania, which would lead to Cody, once again, challenging Reigns in the main event of WrestleMania.

"Now here's the deal, people in WWE are very aware of Roman's status currently in the sense that he's like a living legend and he's so important to WWE, but he's not a full-time guy and there will be some complications that come with him holding the championship as a part-time babyface. That's f*cking insane. So they tried to come up with ways to maybe circumvent this, to make it more interesting, to spice up the road to Mania," Ibou added.

"Triple H wanted to get some surprises in there, and he wanted maybe to throw some monkey wrenches into the road. He wants Cody to win, and so one of the things he devised – Drew McIntyre was the guy who pitched this and Drew was smart because now what he realised is I'm pitching things that can benefit me but I know it'll go through because it'll benefit the overall promotion and what they're trying to do with their big thing... The plan as of last week was Drew McIntyre was gonna be the middle man in this Cody-Roman story," he continued.

"The idea was gonna be Drew McIntyre was gonna hold the championship. It was going to lead to Cody Rhodes shifting his character ever so slightly. They were going to play around with the idea that did he attack Jacob Fatu? Did he not? Is Cody turning heel? Is he not? They're gonna play around with this without actually doing it. Jacob Fatu is going to be a tweener on the show. If you're noticing, you're not hearing a lot of Roman Reigns. It's because he wasn't going to be on TV for a lot of this sh*t. He's a part-timer. The bottom line is what I believe they were going to do is play around with all these elements, all these moving parts. Roman Reigns was most likely going to challenge Drew McIntyre and beat Drew McIntyre at some point in this process, and then he was going to face a challenging Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. So we'll see how that goes…but that's what Paul Levesque was trying to pull off here."

WWE WrestleMania 42 is scheduled to emanate from Las Vegas' Allegiant Stadium on Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19.

Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns have one win apiece in their WrestleMania main events, with Roman winning at WrestleMania 39 to remain Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. Rhodes pinned Reigns to capture the title at WrestleMania 40.

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