Cody Rhodes Vs. Randy Orton At WWE WrestleMania 42 | Key Points

• Cody Rhodes defeated Randy Orton to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship. Cody played the heel for the entirety of the match, bloodying Randy Orton.
• After the match, Orton punted Cody Rhodes and posed with the WWE Championship, implying this feud will continue.

Cody Rhodes leaned into his role as the heel of this match, despite Orton violently turning heel on the March 13 broadcast of SmackDown. Rhodes bloodied Orton early, causing over 50,000 fans in attendance to rally behind Randy even more than they were already planning to. The story of the match was Cody Rhodes channeling his inner-Randy Orton by essentially turning heel from jump and using all of Orton’s moves against him. What resulted, was a heated match where Cody Rhodes—a +275 underdog—retained.

Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton’s feud became a lightning-rod for ragebait. After years of white-meat babyface Cody Rhodes as the effective face of the company, the know-it-all IWC was defiant in its support of Randy Orton. Fans cheered Orton throughout his inevitable heel turn on the March 13 broadcast of SmackDown, all while booing Rhodes. Ironically, the tides began to turn against Randy in his hometown of St. Louis, when it was time for Orton to reveal which mysterious figure was counseling him in a series of backstage phone calls. WWE’s most fervent internet wrestling contingent did what it does best and worked itself into a frenzy.

Was it The Rock? Was it Vince McMahon?

The mystery caller was none other than Pat McAfee.

A combination of self-inflicted disappointment and celebrity resentment led to a firestorm of legitimate heel heat. McAfee cut a worked-shoot promo that admittedly hit too close to home. There were unnecessary mentions of WrestleMania 42’s slow ticket sales. This was true, but only because of the historically high ticket prices, which made WrestleMania 42 the highest gate revenue in history. Instead of celebrating this milestone, however, McAfee became an id for every miserable and anonymous troll on Twitter with a Naruto profile pic.

Having said that, McAfee is a heel. His role was to be fast and loose with the truth. Talking trash about WWE’s inability to “move tickets” while ignoring its historic live gate success is a simple heel tactic that McAfee effectively used against a hardcore fanbase that should know better.

“He is a bad guy. And the idea that fans online are hating that Pat McAfee is involved and don’t want him near the main event—that’s the desired result as a heel,” said WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield.

“It just blows me away when a guy gets heat like this people go ‘it’s go-away heat.’ No, it’s not. Fans wanna have heels, but they wanna be in on it. If you’re saying somebody is a great heel, they’re not a heel.”

Top bad guy McAfee worked the IWC into a shoot. He struck a chord by weaponizing WrestleMania ticket sales against fans, particularly the IWC whom he mentioned (and whom the slow tickets barb resonated with the most.) McAfee was so good at his job as a heel, instead of smarmily cheering for Randy Orton, fans began to boo Orton by association. McAfee and his insults were so polarizing, it inspired quite possibly CM Punk’s best promo since returning to WWE.

In a scathing pipebomb where CM Punk threatened “Pat MAGAfee,” Punk urged WWE-TKO to lower the ticket prices, WWE did just that within moments of Punk’s promo. That Friday, WWE announced a 25% off WrestleMania ticket sale, surprisingly through Heel Pat.

The Cody-Randy feud inspired some of the most negative feedback WWE has received in the Triple H Era. Many fans wanted to be spoonfed the obvious storyline of the Caucasian Rhodes-Orton bloodlines. They wanted to hear tall tales about generations of white wrestling pedigree that dated back to segregation. Instead, WWE made a hard left. It wasn’t a smooth ride at all, but it has produced some of the most visceral, impassioned and authentic reactions to a feud in a very long time.

Content creators love to talk about their disdain for polarizing and even outright bad wrestling storylines. They’re lying. This is what they live for. A content creator’s dream is to have content so good or so bad, that the level of excellence or infamy becomes content in and of itself. “TKO is Ruining WWE” is a WWE slop category that has fed eons of uncreative streamers. This is how they pay their rent and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Randy Orton’s post-match punt on Cody Rhodes suggests this feud will continue. And after Orton RKO’d his run-in buddy Pat McAfee—who will no longer be able to appear in WWE per the stipulation—there will not be a celebrity tag team match against Rhodes and Jelly Roll that many expected.