Report: Was Vince McMahon Planning to Crown Cody Rhodes as WWE Champion?

When Cody Rhodes returned to WWE back in April, he quickly made it apparent that his only goal was to eventually win the WWE Championship. The implications of that claim meant “The American Nightmare” would eventually have to approach and confront the current Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, but Rhodes instead spent his first few months back in the company picking up a trio of pay-per-view wins over Seth Rollins. Unfortunately, he also suffered a torn pectoral and has been out of action ever since his valiant victory over Rollins inside Hell in a Cell. There were plenty of fan theories at the time proposing the idea of Rhodes returning at the Royal Rumble next January and earning a shot at Reigns’ title.

However, it doesn’t sound like Vince McMahon had the same vision in mind. According to a new report from Fightful Select on Monday, McMahon hadn’t “solidified” any plans to make Rhodes a world champion. 

“Instead, we were told that Vince McMahon was ‘all on board’ for the Roman Reigns double title reign, and there weren’t ideas floated from Vince that would have indicated he was ready to move on from that this summer,” Sean Ross Sapp wrote. 

Obviously, a lot has changed since then. McMahon departed the company in July in the wake of multiple scandalous reports from the Wall Street Journal and Paul “Triple H” Levesque is now fully in charge of WWE’s booking as the company’s Chief Content Officer. There have been reports recently of WWE wanting to have two separate world champions again heading into WrestleMania season next year, but are apparently struggling to wind ways around getting at least one title off of Reigns without having him suffer any sort of loss. Reigns is heavily rumored to be in a match at WrestleMania 39 against Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. 

With Levesque now running the show, do you think Rhodes will be world champion at some point within the next year? Let us know down in the comments and check out the lineup for this Saturday’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view below:

• Matt Riddle vs. Seth Rollins (Fight Pit Match)
• SmackDown Women’s Championship: Liv Morgan vs. Ronda Rousey (Extreme Rules Match)
• Raw Women’s Championship: Bianca Belair vs. Bayley (Ladder Match)
• Drew McIntyre vs. Karrion Kross (Strap Match)
• Edge vs. Finn Balor (I Quit Match)
• The Brawling Brutes (Sheamus, Ridge Holland and Butch) vs. Imperium  (Good Old Fashion Donnybrook Match)

h/t Fightful Select