Why 'We Want Cody' is The Rock's worst nightmare

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is one of the biggest movie stars in the world and in many eyes can seemingly do no wrong but the 51-year-old might be reconsidering his popularity after checking his mentions on social media this weekend.

The source of this backlash? The people who made him a star in the first place: WWE fans.

The Rock made a surprise appearance on WWE Smackdown last Friday where he was announced as challenger for his cousin, Roman Reigns championship at the upcoming WrestleMania 40 event in Philadelphia in April.

This match has been rumoured for years and if you believe what The Rock says, the match was scheduled to happen at last year's WrestleMania but they couldn't decide on how they wanted to approach the bout.

Now, 12 months later, the match is going to happen and fans are furious all because of one man: 'The American Nightmare' Cody Rhodes.

Rhodes is the son of legendary wrestler Dusty Rhodes and since returning to WWE in 2022 has become one of, if not the promotion's top stars despite never winning a world championship. After winning the 2023 Royal Rumble, Rhodes ultimately failed to win the championship, or as he puts it 'complete the story,' from Reigns at WrestleMania 39.

Fast forward to the 2024 Royal Rumble and Rhodes again managed to win the Royal Rumble, becoming the first wrestler since Stone Cold Steve Austin in 1998 to win two consecutive rumbles. When celebrating, Rhodes pointed towards Reigns in the stands indicating that he would again be challenging for his championship at WrestleMania.

This was only good news for WWE fans, who had been clambering to see Rhodes face Reigns again and finally win the championship in what will likely be an epic encounter. Except WWE and their newest member of the TKO board of directors, The Rock, appear to have different ideas.

On Smackdown, Rhodes confronted Reigns and although he told him that after some consultation he was coming for the champ but that it wouldn't be at WrestleMania. Cue the entrance of The Rock to a huge reaction from crowd in Birmingham, Alabama. Rhodes and Johnson then shook hands, exchanged some words in secret before Rock turned his attention to his cousion and Rhodes left the ring with his tail between his legs.

Now you might not think that this turn of events matters in a predetermined sport like wrestling as after all Rhodes can challenge for WWE's other world title, currently held by Seth Rollins but in many fan's eyes, this is a second-place prize and not the match they longed for.

Unfortunately, though these things do matter to wrestling fans. Rhodes's story has been building for the past two years in WWE and his supporters don't want to wait another 12 months to see him finally win the big one and risk enduring another year of Roman's already past-its-best title reign. The story of cousin vs cousin is an obvious and tantalising prospect but Cody's story is more organic, more relatable and ultimately has the fan's support.

Plus, The Rock hasn't had a competitive wrestling match since 2013 and given his outings in just a few small in-ring segments in the past few months, 'The Most Electrifying Man in Entertainment' doesn't quite have the stamina that he used to (Rock is older now than Hulk Hogan when he returned for a nostalgia run in 2002) leaving the prospects of him main eventing a WrestleMania with a quality match looking very unlikely.

So, how have wrestling fans voiced their opinions about the situation? Well for starters the segment of the Rock's return on Smackdown is now WWE's most disliked YouTube video ever with more than 200,000 thumbs down. If this wasn't enough nearly every post about the Rock or Cody is being bombarded with messages and memes criticising the move and spawning the #WeWantCody hashtag.

Even fellow WWE superstars like Logan Paul and Ricochet have joined in on the hashtag, in what is likely to be a company move to see how much momentum they can get behind the movement.

The Rock, in contrast, has been posting positive reactions to the moment as if unaware of the overall consensus to him being in the match.

WWE fans do have a history of voicing their disapproval at a fan favourite not getting the payoff that they think they deserve. In 2014, Daniel Bryan was the most popular wrestler in the company but WWE decided that returning Hollywood superstar Dave 'Batista' Bautista should get the title shot at WrestleMania instead of him. Sound familiar? Fans resorted to hijacking shows until WWE had no choice but to put him in the match, thus turning Batista into a heel and Bryan, who did win the title, an even bigger babyface much to the delight of fans.

According to veteran wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer, this is what WWE is hoping to do again. On Wrestling Observer Radio Meltzer said: "We’ll see how they (WWE) try get out of it. But they are turning it into an angle, they are encouraging this. The reaction for Cody, about Cody getting screwed and people getting behind Cody, that was part of the story. That was absolutely expected. As far as people booing Dwayne, I don’t know that was expected.”

The booking surrounding this is what is truly head-scratching. Meltzer adds: "When (Rock) made the (TKO) deal on January 3 to come in (facing Roman at WrestleMania) was part of the deal. Why Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble is a question that I cannot answer because nobody will answer it for me."

The question now remains what will WWE and more importantly The Rock do about all of this? Apart from a few very good spells in his wrestling career, Rock has spent the majority of it being adored by fans. This isn't to say that the Rock couldn't play a heel in 2024 but this is a very different version of the Dwayne Johnson that we saw in 2003, for example.

Not only is the Rock laser-focused on being adored (see the above Instagram post) he also doesn't like to be perceived as a loser, even if he is playing a bad guy. A most recent case of this was his superhero box office flop Black Adam, the arch nemesis of DC hero Shazam and his negotiations with Warner Bros.

Variety also reports that Johnson had strongly pitched for a multi-year plan for his Black Adam and Henry Cavill's Superman to have a showdown, which was teased at the end of the Black Adam movie, despite plans for the latter to move on from the role in 2018. Johnson's politicking reportedly "didn’t sit well" with Warner Bros. This combined with his minor promotion of DC League of Super-Pets, a film he had a producing credit on and demands for his tequila brand to be featured in Black Adam saw the relationship wear thinner. Reports in March 2023, appeared to confirm that Johnson had refused a cameo teasing a confrontation between his character and Shazam, played by Zacharay Levi, in the Shazam sequel, which was also a flop.

The disaster that was Black Adam and his relationship with Warner Bros appearing to leave a sour taste in numerous people's mouths has perhaps attracted The Rock to the one place he knows he'll always be cheered. This should have been the case but a series of bizarre decisions has flipped the situation right on its head and fans have every right to be annoyed, although we can argue how they should go about it.

Wrestlemania isn't until the weekend of April 6th so they have just shy of two months to correct course and turn The Rock into the hero he should have been. However, the 'We Want Cody' horse has well and truly bolted from the stables and anything other than Rhodes being reinserted into the championship match could result in another public disaster for both The Rock and WWE, which neither needs right now.

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