(Almost) 5-Star Match Reviews: Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes – WWE WrestleMania 39

Ah, Roman Reigns, the poster child for infuriating WrestleMania main-events.

I don’t think there has been any wrestler in modern history to have such a contentious and controversy-riddled rise to superstardom as Reigns. He was once the subject to such intense fan backlash that the media, including those publication that didn’t even cover wrestling to begin with, commented on it. He was despised by vocal pockets of the fandom, pockets that grew in size with each passing year.

Things seemed to change course for the better in 2020 when Reigns returned and changed his tune to be something vastly different from before. He became what many people, myself included, argued he should’ve been as far back 2014: the soft-spoken ass-kicker with a Steve Austin-like neutrality that destroyed whatever was in his path. This new Reigns proceeded to shatter records and over time he was being compared with historic champions of the past. And the best part of this was that he had reached this new level of success and admiration without the creative handicaps that had been put on him before.

But despite turning a new leaf, there was still a noted blemish on Reigns’ career: his dubious WrestleMania record. His first two appearances were in Shield six-mans so those don’t really count. His first singles appearance was at ‘Mania 31 and that was a creative shitshow with the only positive being Seth Rollins’ historic eleventh-hour save. At ‘Mania 32 he was at his worst in terms of McMahon-driven booking and won a match so widely hated that he made histrionic Stephanie McMahon look like Miss Elizabeth. This streak of bad matches continued at WrestleMania 33 when he had a stinker with The Undertaker and then a rematch with Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 34 that is only remembered for a backstage exclusive featuring Lesnar throwing the title belt at Vince McMahon backstage. Reigns’ match with Drew MxIntyre at ‘Mania 35 was average but forgettable. Things improved for him at WrestleMania 37 thanks to Edge and Daniel Bryan making for suitable dance partners, but when Reigns faced Lesnar for a third time at ‘Mania 38 it was, like before, flat and repetitive.

If there was anyone that could help Reigns have a good WrestleMania match that made up for the at times overpriced ticket to WrestleMania (and all the other insane expenses that went into the event for the consumer) then it could be ultimate babyface Cody Rhodes winning for his beloved deceased father, right? Right?

The Story

Roman Reigns had been Undisputed WWE Universal Champion for over two full calendar years going into this match. In that time he had beaten everyone with any main-event credibility at the time: Braun Strowman, The Fiend, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan, Edge, Cesaro, Rey Mysterio, John Cena, Finn Balor, Brock Lesnar, Golderg, Matt Riddle, Drew McIntyre, Logan Paul, and Sami Zayn. Some of these men he defeated more than once. Some of them were so badly beaten they left WWE altogether. Some he beat on his own; others he beat with the help of his Bloodline family. Regardless of individual circumstance, Roman Reigns was pushed as a god in WWE, a champion of historic levels who, with time, reached such an elite level that it was expected and unsurprising that he began having matches less frequently because the field of viable contenders had been reduced to nothing.

Enter Cody Rhodes.

Rhodes returned to WWE in January 2023 after an eight-or-so-month hiatus following a horrific pectoral muscle tear that left his right side looking like a garish blood balloon waiting to be popped. The last memory some people had of him was his decision to face Seth Rollins inside a HIAC match with that injury still there. It was an incredible display of toughness and grit; and in a then still-Vince-McMahon-controlled WWE, real toughness was considered the virtue among virtues for any wrestler to have. So even though he was sidelined for months, plans were put in place for Rhodes to be worked into the main-event position as Reigns’ next big challenger.

Rhodes made an immediate impact upon his return, winning the 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble match from the #30 position. Rhodes followed that big win with an even bigger promise: that he’d win at WrestleMania to honor his late father Dusty and win the one title his dad never did. Suddenly this competition for a coveted prize was given a personal edge, one made all the more intense by Paul Heyman’s personal barbs. Heyman was moved to tears by Cody’s respectful words about how Heyman helped Dusty when the elder Rhodes was almost destitute. But then he turned everything around when he said the following:

“In my last conversation with your dad, he told me, ‘you, Cody, were his favorite son’…but Roman Reigns was the son he always wanted.’”

And with that the stage was set. Would Cody Rhodes make Paul Heyman regret those words and take Reigns’ coveted belts from him, or would Roman Reigns put Cody’s carcass atop the mountain of previous challengers who were brave/foolish enough to challenge him?

The Match

This took place on April 2, 2023. It was rated ****1/2 out of five by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

They lock-up and Rhodes gets an early hammerlock but Reigns gets to the ropes, though he makes sure to give off this body language to show he’s not cowering to the ropes or anything like that. Reigns tries to back suplex his way out of a headlock but Rhodes keeps it cinched in. Reigns shoots him into the ropes but Rhodes ducks down and hits a Goldust-style throat thrust from the mat. Reigns stalls for a bit and when they lock-up again he elbows out of a waistlock. He lands a back elbow followed by some corner clotheslines. He charges off the ropes but Rhodes misdirects him and lands a dropkick for a one-count.

Rhodes works Reigns’ left arm (not the Superman punching one) and goes for a Disaster Kick. Reigns catches him and lands a release powerbomb for a two-count. He chokes Rhodes against the ropes and then lands a suplex for another one-count. He lands a second suplex that sends Rhodes far further than the first one and tries dumping Rhodes ringside but Rhodes skins the cat and shitcans Reigns instead. Cody goes for a running kick from the apron but Reigns catches his foot and his a big trip that sends Rhodes face-first onto the apron.

Reigns biels Rhodes up the ramp and lands a scoop slam onto it as well. Reigns breaks the ring-out count to inflict more punishment but Rhodes counters another ramp scoop slam with one of his own. We get some brief ringside brawling but the moment the ref is distracted with Reigns in the ring Solo Sikoa cheapshots Rhodes from behind with a chairshot to the ribs. Reigns follows with a drive-by dropkick and covers in the ring for a two-count.

Cody fights out of a cravate hold but when he bounces off the ropes Sikoa trips him up which allows Reigns to clothesline him for another near-fall. Reigns sends Rhodes into a corner hard and shitcans him to ringside. He teases a powerbomb/piledriver on one of the ringside commentary tables but Rhodes counters with a back body drop that sends Reigns through the other one.

Reigns breaks the ref’s count and shoves Reigns back into the ring where another brawl and a strike exchange ensue. Rhodes blocks a corner charge and hits a scoop powerslam for two. A Cody Cutter gets a two-count. Reigns bails again so Cody lands a suicide dive through the ropes. Again the ref turns his focus onto Reigns for a split second which allows Sikoa to hit Rhodes from behind with his own weight belt. The crowd boos but this time the referee notices Sikoa…to an extent. Michael Cole alleges that he “heard the belt being used” and ejects Sikoa to the back. Wouldn’t hearing the sound of a foreign object being used technically be the same as seeing it being used on a competitor and therefore be grounds for disqualification? This selective officiating is some serious bullshit and one of the worst tropes in WWE’s regular match storytelling.

Reigns grabs the weight belt and teases using it but Rhodes lands a kick followed by Cross Rhodes for another two-count. Reigns hits a jawbreaker followed by some desperation headshots to create some space. Rhodes skins the cat again on another shitcan attempt but Reigns catches him and after a counter sequence lands a big uranage for two. Reigns teases a Superman punch. Cody counters with a Pedigree for two. Rhodes tries a counter Cody Cutter. Reigns hits first with a Superman punch for another two-count. Reigns charges for a spear. Cody counters with a sunset flip for two and then locks in a Figure-4 leglock. Reigns rolls over to reverse it onto Rhodes and Rhodes gets a ropebreak.

We get a yay/boo punch exchange followed by a missed dive from Rhodes and a successful spear from Reigns but it only gets 2.8. Reigns starts getting angry and lands mounted punches on Rhodes as the crowd boos. Reigns signals the end and locks in the guillotine choke. This hold goes on for quite some time but Rhodes frees himself and lands mounted forearms of his own. Reigns sidesteps a charge causing Rhodes to knock the referee down (and out, because these refs are made of glass) Reigns hits a Superman punch but Rhodes hits back and then both men collapse.

Rhodes gets up first and prepares another Cross Rhodes but he’s interrupted by both Usos. They hit the 1D/3D on Rhodes but then Owens and Zayn make the save. A hair too late boys. That said, Owens hits Reigns with a Stunner and Zayn lands a Helluva kick to pop the crowd. The Usos come back and the two teams fight off. Rhodes crawls over and covers Reigns…for two. Kneeling strike exchange. Both men fight to their feet. The crowd continues the yay/boo cheering. Rhodes wins the exchange and tributes his father with the Flip, Flop and Fly. He lands another throat thrust and begins his triple Cross Rhodes combo. He hits two out of three when Heyman distracts the referee after standing motionless for the entire match thus far. With the ref being an idiot once again a hooded Sikoa reappears and hits a Samoan Spike to Rhodes. This allows Reigns to charge up and hit a full-power running spear. One, two, and three! Reigns retains!

Winner and STILL WWE Undisputed WWE Universal Champion after 34:29: Roman Reigns

Review

Every time I’m reminded of this match I have this uncontrollable compulsion to kick myself for not having bet money on it because, had I done so, I would’ve made a small fortune. Because in the lead-up to WrestleMania 39 I was the only one online – or at least, the only one writing on a wrestling website of any repute – to predict that Reigns would retain here. I didn’t make that prediction based on some meta-analysis of WWE’s business goals, or on a look at the company’s creative trends at the time, or on some kind of half-hearted guess that WWE would swerve the audience in this way just to artificially push Reigns’ reign past the 1,000-day mark. No, I based it on Cody’s actions in the lead-up to WrestleMania…or rather, his lack thereof.

Simply put, Cody Rhodes didn’t do a goddamn thing to convince audiences that he would beat Reigns. He did plenty of talking, yes. His promos tugged at peoples’ heart strings, painted a vivid picture, and in one case made Paul Heyman cry. That’s all well and good. But if there’s one thing anyone can learn from watching pro-wrestling for any length of time is that actions speak louder than words and what’s said in a promo often doesn’t mean jack shit.

In Cody’s case he made promises his mouth couldn’t keep. He only had three months between winning the 2023 Royal Rumble match (from the #30 position mind you, which is a less impressive feat than it looks). And in that time, he said a lot but didn’t do all that much. He knew what he was getting into facing Reigns at WrestleMania. He knew that he’d be going to ‘Mania knowing Reigns had plenty of back-up in the form of the Usos (regardless of the night one tag match they were all but guaranteed to run interference in Roman’s big title defense) and Solo Sikoa, and Paul Heyman. Reigns had all these warm bodies around him that could’ve interjected themselves into the match at the right time to turn things around. Cody knew this yet he did nothing to even the odds. He didn’t remove Paul Heyman from the picture. He didn’t get any guarantees from Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn that the Usos wouldn’t show their faces. He didn’t “send a message” to Reigns by taking Solo out of the equation in some big pre-WM angle. In many ways Cody acted like the stereotypical brave-but-foolish doofus character archetype from other media: he went in with blind ambition and still acted surprise when the other factors in the match that he neglected to address turned things against him.

And speaking of Zayn, the same set of circumstances that Zayn experienced at Elimination Chamber 2023 in Montreal hit Cody at WrestleMania only a few weeks later yet Cody didn’t go into this match knowing something like that could happen. There was so much heat and interest in Reigns/Zayn that Cody would have to have been living under a rock to not know what was happening with Zayn and what happened during the match. So to presume that Rhodes didn’t know or understand Reigns’ modus operandi and thought that he could wrestle Reigns as though he were an opponent like any other only further amplified Rhodes’ lack of foresight going into this big match.

So when legions of fans complained about and downvoted this match, upset over how it ended, I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation because I saw it coming a mile away. At no point during the build to this match did Cody come across as Reigns’ equal. He hadn’t beaten anyone of significance in the weeks between his Rumble return and this match. He wasn’t shown doing any special training, hyping up some new special move just for Reigns, or otherwise giving the audience any hint or indication that this match was going to be different from what we were all used to with Reigns in his title defenses. Worse, Rhodes had plenty of time to build angles, attack people, or even to create hype videos showing him doing training in the lead-up to this match. He could’ve shown how he was wrestling every night or showing how he was in better form compared to Reigns (which would’ve added to Rhodes’ credibility since, despite Reigns’ success, Reigns would never be at full 100% given his medical history). Yet none of these options were pursued. WWE effectively left money on the table by building up a match that was sold on carefully-worded bullshit that didn’t have any substance behind it.

For further proof of this lack of proper build, consider what happened to Cody after WrestleMania 39 in the one-year build to his rematch with Reigns at WrestleMania 40. He won a big feud with Brock Lesnar and earned Brock’s respect, had an interesting feud with both Usos that allowed him to tie up some loose ends, won tag team gold, won the Rumble a second time in a row, and generally received strong and protective booking. In other words, he earned immense credibility as a competitor, which is something he simply did not have in the WM39 build-up season. Even with the whole Rock-inserting-himself into the storyline fiasco Cody still overcame incredible odds to win this year. Even with those outside forces bringing office politics to the fore and in some ways overshadowing the actual in-universe storyline, Cody still had an air of credibility going into his title challenge which made their rematch more believable and less predictable because Cody was sure to win this time around.

So the people that collectively shat on this match when it first happened because it didn’t end the way they hoped aren’t worth listening to because they hedged their bets on a babyface challenger who did fuck all to make sure he’d be facing the champion on a level playing field. And with that we can look at the match itself which…is pretty good but still overshadowed by this unshakeable sense of redundancy.

With the odds stacked against him and with his marked lack of progress in the build to WrestleMania it was only a matter of time before Rhodes lost. He wrestled well with Reigns but still the action was limited to both men playing their biggest hits. There was nothing out of the ordinary here; no special moves, no new twists in the story, no experiments to see if Rhodes could do something unexpected. It was business as usual in terms of in-ring action and in terms of storytelling. Although Rhodes had a somewhat compelling story arc of surviving the shenanigans from ringside, he didn’t do anything to address them directly. Solo Sikoa was removed from the equation when the referee noticed him, which was more luck than anything else. Yet Sikoa was able to reappear at the end without consequence so I guess the referee’s admonishments don’t mean all that much in the end. Then the Usos showed up in a hamfisted interference spot that everyone saw coming and ultimate led to a cheap pop but had little overall impact on the story since Rhodes shifted to a finishing sequence moments later.

And when it came to the closing moments, Paul Heyman was inserted into the closing moments in an expected but still lazily executed way. Rhodes could’ve (and should’ve) dealt with him either early in the match or before in the weeks leading up to him because Heyman had a propensity for interfering in Reigns’ matches like he did here. But did Cody address this clearly-foreseeable outcome? No, he let things happen and basically allowed historically devious Paul Heyman to move about unfettered. In many ways Rhodes in this match was like a professional boxer going into a bout knowing his opponent had a loaded glove and thought taking a few direct shots to the face would still somehow lead him to victory. There’s bravery and there’s being foolhardy and Rhodes was a clear-cut example of the latter, much to his own detriment.

Final Rating: ***

The only place to rewatch this is on the WWE Network and it’s a good thing that the Network has both a 3x speed option and the ability to fast forward because both of those are needed to get through this match. Point blank, nothing really mattered for ¾ of this match. It was mostly generic WWE main-event-style wrestling with the same formula seen time and again out of other guys in the same spot. Because of that lack of in-match creativity most of it can be skipped altogether. And if you’re not interested in seeing Reigns and Rhodes play the hits, don’t worry, WWE’s production team (most likely at Vince’s behest) peppered proceedings with a parade of replays of moves you just saw ten seconds ago. Because apparently nothing helps get people through dead air or recovery spots than seeing the exact same sequence twice or more in less than a minute.

Though these guys tried I get the feeling that they were given less than optimal material to work with here. They probably knew the finish but had to work backwards from there and struggled to fill in most of the gaps. The interference spots were too blatant and got annoying fast. Much of the actual wrestling led nowhere. The finish and counter spots were at times surprising but largely contrived and had minimal payoff. All together the match was slightly above average but carried by a somewhat hot crowd that loved Rhodes, hated Reigns, loathed the constant interference, and despised the finish.

The lack of overall positive features in this match makes it unworthy of revisiting. If you are intent on checking out WrestleMania 39 and you want to actually see a great match worth your time and money then then I would strongly recommend the GUNTHER/Sheamus/McIntyre triple threat match or the Charlotte/Rhea women’s title match from night one. Both of those matches are shorter than this one, have more airtight and cohesive action, and feature none of the bullshit seen here. Though this is far from the most frustrating WrestleMania event in modern memory, it’s one that doesn’t live up to the hype thanks to poor decisions made from the moment it was confirmed.

Thanks for reading.