Nick Khan's comments clash with WWE and The Rock's WrestleMania XL narrative

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Hey. Remember back in 2024 when Cody Rhodes won the Royal Rumble for the second straight year, then pointed at Undisputed WWE Universal champion Roman Reigns, and we were like, “Oh boy, Cody’s gonna finish his story now”? And five days later Rhodes showed up on SmackDown and handed his shot at Reigns to The Rock with a handshake, and we (the wrestling community) lost our everlovin’ minds for several days? Then the following week at the WrestleMania XL Kickoff, Cody took his shot back, The Rock turned heel, and Seth Rollins had the American Nightmare’s back, leading to a Night One tag match followed by Rhodes vs. Reigns on Night Two with the story finally being finished… just like we thought it was before Dwayne Johnson got involved? Naturally, you remember the documentary about the behind-the-scenes story of that whole program they promised us for immediately after WrestleMania XL that we ended up getting in early July. And how that doc — and pretty much every interview with The Rock, WWE chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, or Cody Rhodes about Rhodes’ booking that spring that’s happened since April ‘24 — said Johnson came back for a one-on-one match with his cousin Roman, then pivoted to the heel turn and tag match based on audience reaction. Well, WWE president Nick Khan must have missed all that. More likely, he just doesn’t like that version of history (Khan is on record as saying WWE “won’t listen to social media and respond”). And call it pro wrestling or sports entertainment, this is a business where “reality” has always been shaped by whoever’s on top. In an SBJ On Stage video recorded on April 15 of this year and released on Sports Business Journal’s YouTube yesterday (June 2), Khan claimed WWE’s WrestleMania XL plans for The Rock “never changed”. What we say was everything WWE wanted us to see… “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.” My signature snark notwithstanding, it’s possible what we got a couple years ago was all a storytelling and audience engagement plan that worked flawlessly, all involved agreed to keep kayfabe about it for at least a few years, and their boss is now publicly airing the truth and we’ll start hearing more about the extensive work that went into creating multiple levels of fiction. Possible, but not nearly as plausible as the version WWE already copped to back when it happened. Was it just a forgetful moment from a man who I’m sure has a lot on his mind at all times, and we’ll never hear it again? Or will we actually hear Levesque or Johnson back Khan’s account, and this is new official history? And does any of this tell us anything about where negotiations stand between Khan, Rock, and the Saudis about his availability for WrestleMania 43 next year? Discuss below.