15 Things We Learned From WWE Unreal
7. Creative Pitched Cody Going Heel First
WWE's writers took the thread of Rocky and Brian's idea, but played around with it. Again, they loved the thought of Rock requesting Cody's soul, but needed to really sit down and decide what the end game would be. That's when Ed Koskey, Triple H and Bruce Prichard had a 45 minute Zoom call to discuss. They formatted the general layout of Chamber, including John Cena’s win, then decided that Rhodes should turn heel on him by joining forces with Rock.
Yes, Cody almost turned into the top villain in March. Let that sink in for a second, and then think about how different things could've been heading through WrestleMania 41 and into the rest of the year. It was Prichard who offered an alt strategy: “What if we turn John Cena?”. That hadn’t really entered anybody else’s minds, because they just assumed Cena would be a heroic babyface as usual for the entirety of his year long retirement run.
Triple H: “Aw yeah, this is it. It checks all the boxes”.
WWE had their plan, and it was one they hadn't even factored in when the Zoom call between a trio of top creative minds kicked off! They went from Gewirtz and Rock thinking Kevin Owens should be WWE Champ > Cody being the one to join up with Rocky as a corporate champion > Cena doing the dirty on everybody by screwing over Rhodes after winning the right to challenge him for the WWE Title earlier in the evening.
Nick Khan popped up as a talking head on Unreal to admit that he always thought the Chamber PLE needed something huge to sell it. Without The Rock stopping by or Cena's heel turn, he didn't think it was going to be that impactful a show.