During last Friday's SmackDown, Drew McIntyre defeated Cody Rhodes in a Three Stages of Hell match to become Undisputed WWE Champion.
It's been widely reported that Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns III is planned for this year's WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas, leading fans to speculate that the American Nightmare could win the title back before then. There's also the likelihood of their third clash being a non-title bout.
However, Dave Meltzer is reporting today that there's been a huge change behind the scenes in WWE. "This whole WrestleMania changed on Wednesday of last week when they made the decision to go with the McIntyre title win," he explained. "That wasn’t decided until Wednesday. The Cody Rhodes-Roman Reigns thing is probably not happening."
WWE first teased plans for another clash between Rhodes and the OTC when they butted heads at last November's Survivor Series: WarGames.
As for what could replace this rubber match, Meltzer added, "I don’t know what the new matches are, although they may be doing a three-way with McIntyre, Jacob Fatu, and Cody Rhodes. That may not necessarily be at Mania, but I was told that’s kind of like a possibility."
It was Fatu's interference on SmackDown that ultimately cost Rhodes the title, so a Triple Threat match for the title does make sense. We'd imagine it happening much sooner than WrestleMania, though we could see WWE pull the trigger on Fatu as Undisputed WWE Champion on the Grandest Stage of Them All in April.
Since defeating Reigns at WrestleMania 40, Rhodes has gone on to lose the championship to John Cena at last year's Show of Shows before regaining it at SummerSlam.
Rhodes previously shared his take on possibly having another match with Reigns. "I'm very happy with what we put out there. I always try to wax poetic about him, anytime I’ve ever said something a little snarky, I guess it’s been more for entertainment. But I can tell you, that’s probably a very hard match to have happen."
"But I could see it being very significant, it happening again. And for the fans who really make this all up… for that, you can’t just have two, you know? We split it. So that third exists."
"And a lot of times, sometimes matches can go in the file of the greatest match that never happened. I’m certainly not adverse to it," Rhodes added. "I don’t know what his outlook on it is. We’re different than we were. And again, not adverse to it, because we’re split. He won one, I won the other."
Stay tuned for updates on WrestleMania as we have them.