Major Scrapped Cody Rhodes WrestleMania Creative Pitch Revealed On WWE: Unreal

“The prospect of babyface John [Cena] and babyface Cody [Rhodes] felt a little dry to us. But just looking at it from the outside, let’s throw some controlled chaos into this. So, myself and Rock, we got together and we pitched something that was two-fold," he said.

"I had the idea of Cody needing to be Rock’s champion. We had that as the hook. We proposed, at Elimination Chamber, Cody turning down The Final Boss, and that was gonna lead to Final Boss making an impromptu title match right then and there, that resulted in Kevin Owens who had been in a storyline with Cody during that time, leaving with the championship."

Owens hasn't held a world title in WWE since 2017, and had been locked in a blood feud with Rhodes at the time of the Royal Rumble. But instead of facing Rhodes at the Elimination Chamber show, he defeated Sami Zayn in an unsanctioned match, while Rhodes instead declined The Rock's offer of success in exchange for his soul.

This would lead to Cena turning heel in a controversial storyline pivot.

Gewirtz expanded, noting that the grand plans weren't ultimately for Owens, but rather, a major story beat for Rhodes.

"Kevin Owens winning the title wasn’t the end goal," he said. "The takeaway was, whatever it is we do, needs to be seismic. That’s the big question. What is Cody gonna say?”

Owens was scheduled for a significant WrestleMania blowoff match with Randy Orton instead. That would not come to fruition, though, as he would require neck surgery and miss the show altogether.

H/T Fightful for partial transcription assistance.