Cody Rhodes finishes his story, defeats Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 40

The story has been finished.

On a cold Sunday in Philadelphia, Cody Rhodes defeated Roman Reigns in the main event of WWE WrestleMania 40 to win the undisputed Universal title, completing the end goal of a multi-year run that began with his return two years ago at this very event.

The match went roughly 33 minutes and featured a slew of run-ins like The Undertaker, The Rock, John Cena, Seth Rollins, Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso, and was followed by an outpouring of emotions unlike anything seen in wrestling in quite some time.

The win ends the historic run of Reigns at 1316 days that began at August 2020's Payback and saw 31 successful title defenses, and a unification of the Universal and WWE titles against Brock Lesnar at 2022's WrestleMania 38. It was a reign that saw defenses over Lesnar, Goldberg, Sami Zayn, John Cena, Bryan Danielson, Kevin Owens, and others. 

But it was his defense over Rhodes in last year's WrestleMania that surprised many and galvanized more as they thought the time was right for Rhodes to hold the title. What followed was Rhodes besting Lesnar in an impromptu best-of-three series, wins over members of The Judgment Day, a union with Jey Uso that saw them win the undisputed WWE Tag Team titles, a feud with Shinsuke Nakamura, and eventually this year's Royal Rumble.

Rhodes won the men's Rumble and continued to feud with The Bloodline and then, just as he was going to call his shot, Rock entered the scene for his own opportunity at Reigns and it looked like the story was going to be put on pause. What followed was a dizzying two months that eventually saw Rock turn heel and saw Rhodes team with Seth Rollins against Rock and Reigns on WrestleMania's first night.

It was quite the unexpected road to WrestleMania, indeed.

The match

The match was under Bloodline rules due to the result from the aforementioned match where Rhodes and Rollins lost to Reigns and Rock. Sunday's match also had another lesser pushed stipulation that is Rhodes lost, he would never get a title shot against Reigns again.

After throwing Reigns into a ring post, Rhodes introduced a table but got nailed with a Drive-By and then Reigns put the table back to plenty of boos. He later introduced the first weapon -- a kendo stick -- to batter Rhodes' arms and back.

At the 19-minute mark, Rhodes was put through the announcer's table and then nailed with a Superman punch for a close nearfall. As Reigns was about spear him, Rhodes countered with a Cody Cutter for a nearfall and then later hit his own spear for another nearfall. 

Then, the interference began.

As Rhodes was about to hit a second Cross Rhodes, Jimmy Uso ran through the stands and threw a superkick. Reigns hit a Superman punch but got distracted by Jey Uso's music. The two brothers fought it out on the ramp before Jey put both of them through tables that were conveniently placed on the side of the ramp to take them both out.

Rhodes speared Reigns through the barricade in front of the timekeeper's area. He pulled Reigns back into the ring and tried his sequence of Cross Rhodes again, only to be taken out by Solo Sikoa. Sikoa pulled Reigns onto Rhodes, but the challenger got his shoulder up at two.