It’s safe to say the Tribal Chief isn’t happy about it

Cameras have captured the moment Roman Reigns realised that Cody Rhodes had won the Royal Rumble. Last night, on the 27th of January, over 48,000 fans packed into Tropicana Field for the 37th annual Royal Rumble. The WWE Premium Live Event only featured a total of four matches, but, of course, almost all of the intrigue revolved around the two rumbles themselves.

On the women’s side of things, quick-fire eliminations of Jade Cargill and Liv Morgan meant that it was Bayley who came out victorious, as her ongoing storyline within Damage CTRL and possible turn on IYO SKY looks set to roll on in the coming months. But, for the men, the action between the final two in the ring was much more drawn out and tense.

For the most part, viewers were in two camps heading into last night’s event, as the two favourites to win seemed to be CM Punk and Cody Rhodes. As such, it was no real surprise when the match boiled down to the Second City Saint and The American Nightmare at the end of 2024’s Royal Rumble.

The two had an extended battle to close the match, with Punk even saying that he hadn’t waited 10 years to ‘lose to Dusty’s kid’, yet, that’s exactly what happened as Cody Rhodes became the first man since Stone Cold Steve Austin across 1997 and 1998 to win two consecutive Royal Rumble matches. As such, the 40th annual WrestleMania will be headlined in the same way that 2023’s spectacle did, with Cody Rhodes contesting for a top title.

Of course, given that he has only just earned the right, we don’t yet know which champion the rumble winner will choose to take on in April, however, most fans can certainly give it a good guess based on last year and on footage that has surfaced online of the Tribal Chief’s reaction to Cody’s win.

Reigns looked disturbed at Cody winning the Rumble

His facial expressions told the whole story

Since returning to the company in 2022, Cody Rhodes has made it extremely clear that his one main goal is to capture the WWE Championship currently held as part of Reigns’ undisputed gold. It’s likely that Rhodes will chase down The Tribal Chief again at WrestleMania 40, and Roman Reigns’ reaction to seeing Cody’s triumphant has been revealed.

In a video shared by WrestleOps, Reigns is pictured sitting amongst the fans (as both he and World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins were during the main event rumble) as Rhodes’ theme song plays following his win. The Head of the Table looked frustrated to see his WrestleMania 39 opponent earn another guaranteed title shot, and the audience members around him only added to the frustration of the result.

In fact, one particular fan can be clearly heard shouting ‘it’s over!’ to Roman, which seemed to panic the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion even more, as he turned to The Wiseman Paul Heyman to address the fan and his outburst.

This seems to perfectly set the scene as we head into WrestleMania season. It does appear as if ‘Mania 40 will have the same main event as 2023’s show did, and many fans across the world will be hoping that this April will bring the day that Cody Rhodes finally finishes the story and reaches the mountaintop in WWE, and we won’t see a similar result to 12 months prior,

The two men main evented WrestleMania 39

Reigns beat Rhodes on that occasion

With it seeming inevitable that Cody will take on Roman at WrestleMania 40, the two men will engage in a rematch of their main event from last year’s iteration of the event. The Tribal Chief came out on top on that occasion to the surprise of many fans who expected Rhodes to dethrone him at ‘finish his story’.

Instead, it appears as though that moment was postponed until a year later and we’re about to finally see Cody get his hands on a world championship. As always, as more comes out surrounding the build-up to Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns II, GiveMeSport will keep you informed.