WrestleMania 39 at Sofi Stadium turned out to be one of the best events in the history of World Wrestling Entertainment. But to end it all on Sunday night, the American Nightmare Cody Rhodes fought a great match against Roman Reigns, the Tribal Chief and the Head of the Table.
To the dismay of many fans that night, one of Roman’s members of his faction The Bloodline, Solo Sikoa, after being removed from the match, secretly came back and changed the momentum of the match. Rhodes was about to win the match but after the attack from Sikoa, Reigns went in for his famous spear move and ended a legendary match.
Reigns would then come onto Monday Night RAW the next night at the Crypto.com Arena and confront Rhodes. The two sides came into agreement to have a tag team match, with Reigns and Sikoa teaming up.
Cody Rhodes would have a secret tag partner to help him out, and it would end up being none other than the Beast Incarnate Brock Lesnar. Coming off a victory at WrestleMania against Omos, everyone thought Lesnar would keep his good side and help Rhodes beat the Bloodline. But it was anything but that.
As the superstars came out, and Rhodes was getting hyped up for the match, Lesnar came up from behind and used his F5 finisher on Rhodes. And then the carnage on the American Nightmare would only begin, with Lesnar using steel steps and a chair to beat up Rhodes.
And after being left on the floor of the ring with medical personnel attending to him, Lesnar would put up both middle fingers as he left, turning heel immediately after being the good guy at the Showcase of Immortals. Reigns would leave right after the attack began, but when the cameras turned off, they missed a key moment after the show.
Former sports editor of The Montclarion and senior sports communications major Matt Orth took a secret flight from New Jersey across the country to Los Angeles and met up with WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque. The former superstar is tired of seeing Roman Reigns as champion, as he has had a belt around his waist for about 956 days, with the 1,000-day mark quickly approaching.
Triple H wants to have a major shakeup in the WWE and the former champion happened to scroll through the Internet looking for prospects for the younger division within WWE, NXT. He looked throughout the country and when looking at New Jersey, he found some articles about former student Erin Blanchfield from The Montclarion.
Intrigued by the wonderful writing of assistant sports editor Ryan White, he looked up the e-board of the campus newspaper of Montclair State University, and wanted to find out who ran the sports section at The Montclarion.
At the time, the website was not updated to show former opinion editor Avery Nixon taking over the position and showed Orth as the sports editor. Triple H was intrigued by his work ethic, his personality and most importantly, the way he does the Griddy dance. He does the dance like no other.
Triple H then reached out to Orth via email last minute and asked if he can come down to RAW in Los Angeles at what was called (and should still be called) the Staples Center and have him do a favor. Come out to the locker room where Roman is when he has been left alone, steal the belts and run away.
Orth was completely inclined to do this for Triple H as Cody Rhodes was utterly robbed of the championships and the former sports editor was left depressed that Sunday night. He would do whatever it takes to make things right in sports entertainment.
Monday night came. Orth made it to the house that Kobe Bryant built and talked to Triple H prior to him coming out to talk to the crowd. The two guys laid out the master plan, and all they had to do is wait. Orth posed as a production assistant backstage and even had Seth “Freakin” Rollins sing his theme song with him midway through the show.
Then, 11 p.m. eastern time came around. Reigns was in the locker room, getting ready to leave and take an extended break from shows. When all of a sudden, Orth snuck into the door and Griddy’ed up to Reigns with his belts on his lap. Orth used his reach to grab the belts and Griddy’ed out of the locker room. Reigns tried to spear Orth but he danced out of the way and Reigns crashed into the door.
Laying in pain, Orth ran away alongside Triple H and got on a helicopter back to the WWE headquarters. When Triple H asked about the ordeal, Orth only said two key words: “Acknowledge me.”
Orth plans to defend the belts at WrestleMania 40 at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts in his corner.
