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Roman Reigns kept Cody Rhodes from finishing his championship story and continued one of wrestling’s historic championship reigns in the process.
The Tribal Chief defeated Rhodes to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal championship, with plenty of help from The Bloodline in the WrestleMania 39 Night 2 main event at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday night.
Reigns still hasn’t been pinned since December 2019 and his 944-day world-title reign marches on.
To bring the story full circle, new tag-team champs Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn thwarted Jimmy and Jey Uso’s attempt to help Reigns win, even delivering a Stunner and a Helluva Kick to The Tribal Chief.
It appeared Rhodes was on the cusp of winning, but Paul Heyman distracted the referee as The American Nightmare got ready to hit a third straight Cross Rhodes finisher.
It allowed Solo Sikoa — who had been tossed from ringside — to come out of the crowd and land the Samoan Spike on Rhodes.
Reigns then delivered a final spear and pinned Rhodes’ shoulders to the mat for the win.
Rhodes, the son of “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, was trying to finish his legendary family’s story by becoming the first to hold a world championship in WWE.
It was quite the journey for the 37-year-old to get to this point.
He left WWE in 2016 due to being unhappy with his creative direction, beginning a seven-year run that saw him star in Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling before helping launch the upstart All Elite Wrestling in 2019 as a talent and executive vice president.
After he and AEW couldn’t agree on a new contract, Rhodes returned to WWE at last year’s WrestleMania as the first major name to move from AEW to WWE.
A torn pec before the Hell in the Cell pay-per-view would keep him out seven months before he came back to win the men’s Royal Rumble in January and put himself on a collision course with Reigns.
The match was the third time Reigns has main-evented WrestleMania within the same title reign that included 26 defenses.
Reigns and The Bloodline story — which is far from over — has ushered in a more cinematic approach to WWE’s storytelling and ignited the company’s product to being red hot again.
It was all a celebration of the Anoaʻi family’s Samoan dynasty in the business, raising it to its highest profile.
His only other singles defeat during this run was getting disqualified against Seth Rollins at the 2022 Royal Rumble.
Who will finally take the belts from him still remains to be seen.
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