The road to WrestleMania 42 has been completely upended following a historic and sudden title change on Friday Night SmackDown. While original creative plans were set for Cody Rhodes to defend the Undisputed WWE Championship against Roman Reigns in a rubber match at Allegiant Stadium, those plans were reportedly scrapped last Wednesday when Triple H opted for a massive reshuffle.
The shift saw Drew McIntyre defeat Cody Rhodes in a brutal Three Stages of Hell match in Berlin to become a four-time world champion. The decision to crown McIntyre just weeks before the 2026 Royal Rumble was reportedly a last-minute “monkey wrench” designed to inject unpredictability into the title scene.
“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,” according to Ibou of Self Made.
However, McIntyre himself reportedly pitched the title change, realizing that his rise as a “middle man” could create a more layered narrative for both Rhodes and Reigns.
This new direction heavily involves the “Samoan Werewolf” Jacob Fatu, who returned to cost Rhodes the title after being sidelined by a mysterious backstage attack months ago. WWE is now playing with a character shift for Rhodes, exploring the idea that he may have been the one to mastermind the attack on Fatu to protect his championship.
“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,” Ibou claims. “They were going to play around with the idea that did he attacked Jacob Fatu? Did he not? Is Cody turning heel? Is he not?”
“The bottom line is what I believe they were going to do is play around with all these elements, all these moving parts,” he added. Roman Reigns was most likely going to challenge Drew McIntyre and beat him 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.”
