Was Cody losing at mania 39 the right move?

[Renslayer]

Clearly yes. And knowing how quickly some folks will say "misery booking," "the crowd's gonna turn on him," etc., saved him a year of headaches as well. Win win for him and the company

[salz4life]

In hindsight, probably. I think the extra year on the story was phenomenal.

[lucas_lee]

Apr 8, 2024 8:04:24 GMT -5 Renslayer said:

Clearly yes. And knowing how quickly some folks will say "misery booking," "the crowd's gonna turn on him," etc., saved him a year of headaches as well. Win win for him and the company

I would say this if that was the original plan. Except The Rock almost sent their plans crashing into the ground with selfish booking.

[Ryushinku]

I genuinely think this will be best answered by WrestleMania 41...!

[Renslayer]

Apr 8, 2024 8:09:42 GMT -5 lucas_lee said:

Apr 8, 2024 8:04:24 GMT -5 Renslayer said:

Clearly yes. And knowing how quickly some folks will say "misery booking," "the crowd's gonna turn on him," etc., saved him a year of headaches as well. Win win for him and the company

I would say this if that was the original plan. Except The Rock almost sent their plans crashing into the ground with selfish booking.

This is fair. At the same time, we've seen booking change due to external circumstances and the product is way better as a result. Like, was anyone mad in '97 mad we didn't get bret vs HBK at mania 13 and we got bret austin instead? The plan was hart vs michaels, but what we eventually got was a million times better and helped change the company in the most amazing ways

[ChitownKnight]

You guys think if the title reign started a little later like say Mania 37, it would have been received better? It would still hit 1000 days, end at the 40th mania, and you can have the redemption arc with Cody. And the last year he has more title defenses to make up for the fact his run started later

[kingoftheindies]

Said last night no. The ending can be cathartic, the pop can be big, but it doesn't make Cody losing last year the right move. The fact that Cody was able to stay as hot as he was is a credit to him more than the company... also take into account that the Fans rejecting Rock vs Roman so vehemently is why the story did end get finished this year.

This is not to say it wasnt a great moment and shouldn't be enjoyed (and I fully admit I personally wasn't feeling the match last night) but not gonna give WWE credit for getting lucky.

[thegreatnodnarb]

I was pretty excited and hyped for Cody to win last year and I wasn't happy when he lost. This year I was happy he won but I just didn't have the same feelings about it like I did last year. So I'm going with that it wasn't worth the wait. Last year was still the perfect time to do it. This year they had to do it.

[clc]

Apr 7, 2024 22:29:11 GMT -5 SneakMan said:

No, because tonight only happened due to fan pushback. Had it been the plan all along for Cody to lose at 39 and win at 40 that would be one thing, but doing Cody/Roman II instead of Rock/Roman was an obvious pivot.

I think it was a double pivot.

Plan was Cody vs Roman 2...Rock last minute says he can finally do the match vs Roman. Plan becomes Roman vs Rock, fans reject it, they pivot back to Cody.

Roman vs the Rock was the plan for years, but Rock was never available. I think part of Roman's stranglehold on the belts was WWE pathetically hoping the Rock would return their call.

[Desi]

No.

This year happened because the fans had to save WWE from themselves AGAIN (like with WM 30.)

[Denny Zen]

Depends on your metric. Businesswise, clearly it was. It created a compelling story thread for another full year leading into WrestleMania that objectively drove one of the biggest years WWE has ever had. 

That said, it was misery booking. So from an enjoyability for the fans standpoint I'm not sure it was the "right move." But it's all subjective anyway.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

All of the Bloodline stuff would've made so much more sense and had more juice behind it if Roman lost.

[Deleted]

No simply because if the crowd did not revolt like they did this would have been Rock Vs Roman for the title like they clearly wanted.

Funny thing is if Cody had won at 39 WWE could have had exactly what they wanted at this show.

[the2ndevil]

I'm still saying yes because Cody does absolutely nothing for me as a wrestler.

[A Platypus Rave]

Apr 8, 2024 9:16:25 GMT -5 "Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik said:

All of the Bloodline stuff would've made so much more sense and had more juice behind it if Roman lost.

and then you have the Rock comes back to put the house in order.

Again almost everything storyline wise makes more sense if Cody won last year.

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

I mean...it pretty objectively was. Like, you might have personal preferences and etc but...

-Cody was somehow even hotter now than he was last year
-Roman's reign somehow got more juice to it along with the Bloodline story propping up business
-Got to FINALLY have Rock and Roman interact in a significant spot

It's so rare but WWE took a creative gamble and it absolutely paid off. It's really not arguable, imo.


...I mean, yeah it is technically arguable but they aren't good arguments, haha. 

[eJm]

Apr 8, 2024 10:58:11 GMT -5 Magic knows Black Lives Matter said:

I mean...it pretty objectively was. Like, you might have personal preferences and etc but...

-Cody was somehow even hotter now than he was last year
-Roman's reign somehow got more juice to it along with the Bloodline story propping up business
-Got to FINALLY have Rock and Roman interact in a significant spot

It's so rare but WWE took a creative gamble and it absolutely paid off. It's really not arguable, imo.


...I mean, yeah it is technically arguable but they aren't good arguments, haha. 

I mean, yeah, they made more money from it. Nobody here is saying they didn't.

My point is that we're honestly only talking about 2 or so months with another 10 where nothing really of note happened with either guy that wouldn't have benefited from juice on those. Like, Lesnar/Cody was a series people had with pretty much zero real heat and the Tribal Combat stuff with Roman and Jey was a rehash of 3 years ago right down to Jimmy deciding Roman was the better option. Roman fighting Jey after blaming him and Jimmy for losing the world title and Cody and Brock switching belts for a couple of months feel like much better, memorable stories than what we got.

And honestly, if the only way to get what we got was for how things happened to happen...that feels like a lack of creative thinking on people's ends. Heck, Roman/Rock happening this year with anyone in the world title scene facing off (if Cody lost before 'Mania) feel like more coherent money draws and, as A Platypus Rave said earlier, it'd have a Night 1 main event that wouldn't be predictable as the sun rising in the morning.

[longtimelurker29]

It was the absolute right move. Last year was the most disappointed I’ve ever been watching a wrestling show. But the year of continuing to build up Cody as the top guy in the company and then the pivot because of how much the fans wanted him to finish the story made him an even bigger star.

The company got bigger and bigger in the one year since he lost and a lot of that is owed to him.

[HMARK Center]

Nah, given that there were absolutely no in-story consequences for the match outcome last year (a whole lot of Cody spinning his wheels and Roman not being around), and what direction the two main players did go in would've made a lot more sense if the result in '23 had been flipped.

WWE got away with this, big time; credit to them, they spent the last year at least assuring the audience that this isn't the Vince-led WWE anymore, that Cody wasn't going to be "buried" or shuffled into the midcard just because he lost last year, but from a storytelling/creative point of view, the extra year was meaningless beyond getting people to go "finally!"

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

Apr 8, 2024 11:07:41 GMT -5 eJm said:

Apr 8, 2024 10:58:11 GMT -5 Magic knows Black Lives Matter said:

I mean...it pretty objectively was. Like, you might have personal preferences and etc but...

-Cody was somehow even hotter now than he was last year
-Roman's reign somehow got more juice to it along with the Bloodline story propping up business
-Got to FINALLY have Rock and Roman interact in a significant spot

It's so rare but WWE took a creative gamble and it absolutely paid off. It's really not arguable, imo.


...I mean, yeah it is technically arguable but they aren't good arguments, haha. 

I mean, yeah, they made more money from it. Nobody here is saying they didn't.

My point is that we're honestly only talking about 2 or so months with another 10 where nothing really of note happened with either guy that wouldn't have benefited from juice on those. Like, Lesnar/Cody was a series people had with pretty much zero real heat and the Tribal Combat stuff with Roman and Jey was a rehash of 3 years ago right down to Jimmy deciding Roman was the better option. Roman fighting Jey after blaming him and Jimmy for losing the world title and Cody and Brock switching belts for a couple of months feel like much better, memorable stories than what we got.

And honestly, if the only way to get what we got was for how things happened to happen...that feels like a lack of creative thinking on people's ends. Heck, Roman/Rock happening this year with anyone in the world title scene facing off (if Cody lost before 'Mania) feel like more coherent money draws and, as A Platypus Rave said earlier, it'd have a Night 1 main event that wouldn't be predictable as the sun rising in the morning.

I mean, regardless of how you got there, it was still the right move?? Like, I'm not arguing that things didn't get stuck in the mud because they did but factoring in the limitations (Roman is a whole ass Leukemia survivor so his schedule is gonna be limited), it accomplished what it set out to do incredibly well. 

I swear I'm not trying to be mean but I don't really see how any of what you wrote indicates it wasn't the right move. Babyfaces are still over (Jey, in particular, would not have caught on without the steam that came from breaking off from the Bloodline), the main guy you were trying to get over is hotter than ever. That's not "they made money so it's good", it's "they achieved their end goals and propped up the product for strong business going forward." By definition, that is a success. 

Again, if you didn't care for the creative direction, ok. You can just say that but what's not really arguably is that WWE's creative story "finished the story" of getting these characters in a stronger place than they were before it started. Two things really can be true!!! "Man, I wish they did this differently" and "jeez, they are actually seeing some strong dividends from this story I didn't care for" are two different things.