WWE President Nick Khan Claims WWE WrestleMania 40 Plans “Never Changed”

WWE’s WrestleMania 40 event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania featured Cody Rhodes defeating Roman Reigns to become the new Undisputed WWE Universal Champion. This match was notable for the “great pivot” done by WWE due to the very negative fan backlash towards Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson originally taking Rhodes’ spot in the match despite Rhodes earning it after winning that year’s Men’s Royal Rumble match. WWE later released a documentary called “WrestleMania 40: Behind The Curtain” that focused on the Rhodes vs. Reigns feud for WrestleMania 40 and the creative pivot made by the company after they listened to the fans.

A recent episode of Sports Business Journal’s SBJ On Stage show featured WWE President Nick Khan as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Khan claiming that WWE’s creative plans for WrestleMania 40 were never changed and the situation always went the way that WWE had wanted it to go.

“By the way, the plan was always how it ended up in Philly two years ago. Sometimes — it’s a pre-determined outcome in wrestling. You want to throw the fans off, you want to let things bake, and then, boom, it ends up the way that we wanted it to end up. It never changed. That was just online rumors and gossip that we were changing — it never changed. We convinced Dwayne Johnson to come back. He’s on our board of directors. It was a tag team match. He’s about the same age I am, so two years ago let’s say he was 50, he was obviously in phenomenal shape, he did everything that we asked of him and then some. But that was always the result we were looking for.”

Khan also gave his thoughts about how himself and WWE does not listen to social media criticisms regarding their product.

“People are allowed to complain, but we don’t adjust our business based on complaints. We adjust our business based on ratings, revenue, relevancy.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com