Cody Rhodes Says WWE WrestleMania 42 Build With Pat McAfee Is Just ‘A Normal WrestleMania’ For Him & His Fans

Published: Apr 11, 2026 by Liam | Last Updated: Apr 11, 2026 by Liam

Liam has been reporting & analyzing wrestling news for over eight years, and is currently the Managing Editor at WrestleTalk.com. Immersed in wrestling for 18 years, he has over 11,000 published articles in addition to leading and overseeing WrestleTalk.com's coverage.

Cody Rhodes Says WWE WrestleMania 42 Build With Pat McAfee Is Just ‘A Normal WrestleMania’ For Him & His Fans

WWE Champion Cody Rhodes has commented on the build to WrestleMania 42 with Pat McAfee getting involved, calling it “a normal WrestleMania.”

Rhodes was set to defend his WWE Title against Randy Orton in a match that was seemingly going to be built around their histories together going back almost 20 years, including Rhodes’ time as a protege of Orton.

However, WWE parent company Endeavor and TKO CEO Ari Emanuel got involved in a bid to increase ticket sales, and inserted Pat McAfee into the storyline as Orton’s new ally, with Jelly Roll now on Rhodes’ side.

Cody Rhodes and Jelly Roll on WWE SmackDown

Cody Rhodes and Jelly Roll left WWE SmackDown together after being attacked by Pat McAfee and Randy Orton

This is far from the first time Rhodes has had a rocky road to WrestleMania over the past few years, something he has now acknowledged.

Responding to a fan reaction to the Rhodes, Orton, McAfee and Jelly Roll segment on last night’s SmackDown – with the fan saying “always with you QB” – Rhodes replied:

We are gonna stand in the pocket, stare down every foolish obstacle, and throw! ❤️

A normal Wrestlemania for us

Cody Rhodes’ Chaotic WrestleMania Builds

Since his return to WWE at WrestleMania 38 in 2022, there has been at least some level of chaos for Rhodes at every Mania since then.

At Mania 39, he was set to win the Undisputed WWE Championship from Roman Reigns before Vince McMahon got re-involved in creative and pushed for Reigns to win and to hold off on Rhodes dethroning him for another year.

Then, when Mania 40 did come around, The Rock inserted himself in the picture and attempted to cancel the Rhodes vs Reigns rematch in favor of running Rock vs Reigns instead – which ended up resulting in the Rhodes & Seth Rollins vs Rock & Reigns night one tag match before Rhodes did finally manage to get his win on night two.

And last year at WrestleMania 41, The Rock came back again and wanted to turn Rhodes heel.

Instead, WWE turned John Cena heel, which led to the disastrous interference from Travis Scott, and Rock hasn’t been back since.

Cody Rhodes Is The On-Screen Version Of Triple H

All the changes and chaos of Cody Rhodes’ WrestleMania builds have also been felt by the man ultimately trying to construct them – WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H.

Rhodes is pretty much the on-screen representation of HHH right now, with Pat McAfee being the on-screen representation for Ari Emanuel inserting himself into the picture.

Much like Rhodes hasn’t had a Mania main event that wasn’t thrown off by someone else getting involved, the same can be said for Triple H as he’s trying to book the event.

The promos we’re seeing from the likes of Rhodes and CM Punk criticizing McAfee and Emanuel likely aren’t far away from how Triple H feels about the whole ordeal, as we saw in the discovered text messages that recently emerged from when Vince McMahon was getting involved in 2023, with HHH voicing frustrations to WWE President Nick Khan.