Around New Year’s, most online wrestling fans were expecting the main events of this year’s WrestleMania to be CM Punk vs. Bron Breakker and Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes. Partly that was because signs on-screen pointed that way, especially with Punk and Breakker. Partly that was because it was being reported that way by Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer.
Meltzer is seen by many mainstream outlets as the go-to name for context on pro wrestling stories, but he’s a lightning rod on the web. Reasons would fill up a whole series worth of posts, but one criticism/joke that doesn’t get thrown at Meltzer as much as it did before Netflix’s WWE UnReal docuseries came out last year is his use of “plans changed” as an explanation for why some of his rumors about creative direction never show up in the product. As we’ve seen in the more believable parts of UnReal, plans do change behind-the-scenes in pro wrestling — all the time, for all kinds of reasons.
Which isn’t to say Meltzer’s always right about why plans changed. So you still may have some issues with his version of how we went from Punk vs. Bron and Rhodes/Reigns III to a World Heavyweight title match of Punk vs. Reigns and what looks to be Rhodes/McIntyre for the WWE title. But it seems plausible enough to us. Here’s a summary of what Dave wrote in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter so you can decide for yourself:
When the decision was made, they had to scrap Breakker winning the Rumble and the choices were either Rhodes or Reigns. The idea was to not have Rhodes win, trying to make him earn his title shot in the Elimination Chamber and build the show until the end of this month around Punk vs. Reigns as the big match. They could have picked Rhodes or Reigns, but based on the story being told, Rhodes winning the Chamber (and it still could go to Fatu and they could throw a curve ball but I don’t see this year’s Mania pivoting away from Rhodes in a title match) making the most sense.
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