Jeff Jarrett discusses Cody Rhodes' loss at WWE WrestleMania 39.
Rhodes won the 2023 Men's Royal Rumble match, and he feuded with Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns on the road to WrestleMania 39. Reigns' title run spanned over 950 days ahead of the show, but many fans believed Rhodes would "finish the story" by dethroning him at WrestleMania. Instead, in the main event of the second night of the show, Solo Sikoa interfered and hel[ped Reigns win the match.
Speaking on his My World with Jeff Jarrett podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer was asked to share his thoughts on Reigns' victory. Jarrett first noted that he wasn't sure whether the news that WWE was in advanced talks regarding a deal with Endeavor, which broke shortly before the second night of WrestleMania 39, influenced the outcome.
“The fact that I don’t know what I really don’t know, and that is the big CNBC news break that started happening about six hours before bell time. Had that not been a real thing, so kind of unplug the sale, which at the end of the day, all the news comes out, and look, Dana White and UFC basically stayed as is, and Ari and Endeavor just kind of lifted the whole business, but Dana kept running it, and that’s the word coming out, that it’s Vince’s baby and his business, and he’s gonna keep running it. But at the end of the day, the words Endeavor are before UFC, and the words Endeavor will be in front of WWE. So there’s a new sheriff in town. I have no idea, and there’s obviously the talk and rumors that the finish, was it put in place a month or however long before, so I took all those variables in and look at it, and we just talked about $20 million on sponsorship, so super, super successful. So don’t fix what’s not broke. I completely lean into all of that, and there is so many sides to that argument. That’s the one side," Jarrett said.
Jarrett continued by questioning whether Rhodes and WWE will be able to recreate the groundswell of support that surrounded "The American Nightmare" leading into WrestleMania. He then stated that, given the success of WrestleMania itself from a business perspective, there's no right or wrong call, as the creative was subjective.
"On the other side is, will Cody and the WWE Universe be able to recreate that groundswell of ‘Finish the story,’ and the story being he left, charted his way, went out, all the independent promotions, all the groundswell, and he came back, and it’s no secret that the touring champion or the lead singer of a rock band or however we wan to slice it, yes, there’s an evolution of it, the fact that we’re talking about it as super successful means there was no right or wrong call. It’s totally subjective," he said.
However, Jarrett described how he believes in the importance of a gut feeling as a booker, and he felt like Rhodes winning might have been the right call. He stated that the loss wouldn't have hurt Reigns, and his gut is telling him that WWE missed the opportunity with Rhodes. Jarrett also praised the match itself and called the finish the screwjob of screwjobs.
"This is something that Jerry Lawler, my dad, Jackie Fargo, ‘Handsome’ Jimmy Valiant, one time sat me down and kind of gave me this kind of mindset. There’s something about a gut feeling, and sometimes promoters go with their gut. My gut still told me it would have been the right move. I don’t think it would have hurt Roman, I don’t think it would have hurt The Bloodline. I don’t think, if we wait a year, I don’t think, because we waited a year, there’s gonna be that many more eyeballs, there’s gonna be that much exponentially grown business. All the, ‘He didn’t do it this year, and we’re gonna do it next year because of X,Y, and Z,’ that’s still TBD. I think my gut tells me they missed the opportunity. I may be wrong, but I may be right. We will see. It was a hell of a match, a hell of a finish, and it’s funny how, a lot of the audiences will say, ‘Oh, this run in there and that run in there, oh they would never do that in the world title match.’ This match had been built and it’s the WrestleMania main event of night two, and they had five people run in. You talk about the layer upon layer upon layer, the Screwjob of all Screwjobs," Jarrett said.
Jarrett went on to share his belief that the rewards of having Rhodes win would pay off more than the decision to have Reigns retain. Co-host Conrad Thompson responded by sharing his own thoughts on Reigns' win, and he expressed his belief that there's more story to tell with "The Tribal Chief." Jarrett agreed, but he wondered whether having Rhodes as a champion would be more beneficial for the company, as far as its business metrics were concerned.
"The creative’s subjective. The business metrics of Cody going out and yeah, they do big business where Roman’s on his live events, and maybe that’s just kind of the live event promoter in me. But Roman doesn’t make all the shows, Cody will, and so what would those numbers be if you had Cody going to Wichita, Kansas, [or] even an A and B market. Roman’s schedule is, and god bless him, he’s worked his butt off to arrive at that point. Hat’s off to him in do many ways, but the business metrics. Would Cody set a record year in merchandise sales?" Jarrett said.
The night after Rhodes lost to Reigns, "The American Nightmare" started feuding with Brock Lesnar. On the April 10 episode of WWE Raw, Rhodes challenged Lesnar to a match at WWE Backlash. More information is available here.
Catch up on our coverage of the April 10 episode of WWE Raw here.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
