WrestleMania XL had an epic Night 1, setting up Night 2’s Bloodline Rules match between Cody Rhodes and WWE Champion Roman Reigns for the villain’s world title.
Soon, you’ll be able to see behind the scenes and watch what led up to these pivotal moments in a new documentary, “WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtain,” following this year’s Road to WrestleMania. It debuts this Wednesday on WWE’s YouTube channel, but you can watch an exclusive trailer above.
The special promises to take viewers into little-seen spaces including the office of former wrestler and current head of creative Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the WWE corporate jet and more. It will also follow Levesque, the company’s chief content officer, as he works with the rest of WWE’s talent, creative team, production team and others to set up this year’s WrestleMania main event matches in Philadelphia.
“Jan 1, 2024, we were discussing what WrestleMania could look like,” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson recalls in the trailer.
The documentary tracks what happened once Johnson showed up on the New Year’s Day edition of WWE’s “Raw,” teasing a potential clash with Reigns by invoking one of the catchphrases of his honorary family member: asking whether he should sit at the “Head of the Table.”
However, the idea of that match ran up against the storyline of Rhodes chasing Reigns’ title and looking to “Finish the Story” after his surprise loss to Reigns at the 2023 WrestleMania in Los Angeles, where Reigns and his villainous Bloodline allies managed to keep Rhodes away from the title Reigns has now held for nearly four years.
“This card for WrestleMania was probably 80% done in October,” Levesque says.
After the 2023 loss, Rhodes kept on the chase to win the championship that his father, legendary wrestler Dusty Rhodes, never did: the WWE Championship. That’s because Dusty, while a champion in other major wrestling organizations, never had that opportunity when he wrestled in WWE. The main event was switched to Rock vs. Reigns, with Rhodes left on the sidelines and seemingly set up to face off instead against Seth Rollins.
“I’ve been a part of some chaotic builds, but this one has been the wildest,” Rollins says.
Rhodes being sidelined quickly shifted, though, as fan outcry went viral on social media with fans tweeting “#WeWantCody.”
“This unique thing happened,” Johnson explains.
The fans convinced the powers that be to make a change and put Rhodes back in the WWE Championship title picture.
“We call an audible, ’cause this is all happening in real-time,” Levesque says. He adds, “We pivot in a way that blurs the lines of fiction and reality.”
The series of changes in WWE’s storyline allowed Johnson to develop a new version of his “Rock” character, seemingly pulling in a bit of the dark Black Adam character he played in the DC Comics film for Warner Bros. Discovery. It also incorporates his real-life ascension to a position on the board of directors of WWE’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings, and gave him a new nickname: the Final Boss.
“Becoming this new version has been the most gratifying decision,” Johnson says. Alluding to the way the company responded to fans, he notes, “The power goes back, as it should, to the people.”
“I think this story goes down a path that no one in their right mind could have ever anticipated,” Rhodes says.
Meanwhile, Reigns offered a take that played to his character’s contempt for the fans and used the insider term “swerve,” which is used to describe misleading the audience.
“You can continually swerve ’em? Then we’ve done our job,” Reigns says.
“Behind the Curtain” features interviews with Johnson, Rhodes, Reigns and Rollins, as well as Reigns’ manager Paul Heyman and WWE executive director Bruce Prichard. The documentary uses exclusive access to WWE’s stars to reveal “never before seen moments,” according to the company.
The full behind-the-scenes documentary, “WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtain” debuts on WWE’s YouTube channel on Wednesday.
