Sports
Major Match Scrapped After Drew McIntyre’s WWE Title Win
The planned card for WrestleMania 42 has reportedly undergone a major reshuffle after Drew McIntyre kicked off the new year by dethroning Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship on SmackDown.
The Scottish Warrior’s victory in the pair’s Three Stages of Hell match in Berlin is said to have only been decided upon in the hours leading up to the match, with both Rhodes and McIntyre pushing for the title switch.
Historically, WWE would not have crowned a new champion just weeks before one of its biggest Premium Live Events of the year, the 2026 Royal Rumble, but the promotion is rumoured to be taking ‘a different approach’ to booking the build-up to WrestleMania this year.
While there had been a growing sense that Drew was long overdue another run as world champion, WWE is also seemingly keen to avoid the road to WrestleMania 42 becoming predictable. By shaking up the top of the card and handing McIntyre the gold, the company has already started making moves in that direction.
Originally Planned WrestleMania 42 Match is ‘Probably Not Happening’
With just under three months to go until WresteMania, WWE has reportedly got a plan in place for much of the two-night card, which takes place at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on the 18th and 19th of April. However, McIntyre’s WWE Championship win has now caused a contest that could have potentially headlined the event to be scrapped.
Reports had begun to surface over the past few weeks indicating that WWE were preparing to book a rubber match between Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns for WrestleMania 42. The duo have met twice at ‘The Show of Shows’ and are currently tied at one win apiece.
Reigns defeated Rhodes in the main event of WrestleMania 39, before Cody got his revenge at WrestleMania 40, pinning Roman to win the WWE Championship. A trilogy bout between the pair is inevitable and was heavily teased after the pair teamed together in a losing cause at Survivor Series: War Games late last year.
Given that their previous two contests had headlined WrestleMania, it is likely that Rhodes vs Reigns III would have ended up as the main event of one of the nights of this year’s show.
However, on a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, veteran journalist Dave Meltzer stated that he had heard that the third match between Rhodes and Reigns, scheduled for WrestleMania 42, was “probably not happening”.
New Match Could Take Place at WrestleMania 42
“This whole WrestleMania changed last week, when they made the decision to go with the McIntyre title win,” he stated, before revealing a potential replacement for the cancelled match.
“I don’t know what the new matches are, although they may be doing a three-way with McIntyre, Jacob Fatu, and Cody Rhodes. That may not necessarily be at Mania, and that’s not even 100%, but I was told that’s kind of like a possibility.”
Fatu played a major role in the finish of the Three Stage of Hell match in which McIntyre won the WWE Championship. ‘The Samoan Werewolf’ made his return to the company and brawled with both Drew and Cody.
While Fatu and Rhodes were exchanging blows, Drew took full advantage of the distraction and exited the Steel Cage to win the deciding fall of the bout. The three men will reportedly get the chance to settle their differences, and it could happen on the grandest stage of them all.
