Drew McIntyre’s shocking WWE Undisputed Championship win over Cody Rhodes on SmackDown has rewritten the Road to WrestleMania 42 and shattered long-held booking assumptions.
Hats off to WWE. After a year filled with predictable swerves and twists that often felt designed more for social media clips than long-term storytelling, the company finally delivered a genuine shock — one that actually mattered. On Friday night’s episode of WWE SmackDown, Drew McIntyre defeated Cody Rhodes to win the WWE Undisputed Championship, abruptly ending Rhodes’ 159-day reign.
The result wasn’t just surprising — it was borderline unthinkable. For years now, WWE has conditioned fans to believe that its biggest championship changes hands only on the grandest stages. Since Triple H took over creative control, the Undisputed Championship has been treated as sacred, reserved almost exclusively for WrestleMania or SummerSlam. Even premium live events have often felt “too small” for a title switch.
That made the idea of Cody Rhodes — WWE’s modern golden boy — losing the championship on a random episode of SmackDown feel absurd. The fact that it happened on a European tour show, broadcast hours later in the U.S. and instantly spoiled online, only added to the disbelief. WWE, a company famously obsessed with controlling the narrative on social media, knowingly pulled the trigger anyway.
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Even after the three-count, it felt unreal. There was a genuine sense that something else had to be coming — a restart, a rematch announcement, or SmackDown general manager Nick Aldis storming the ring to add another stipulation. The notion that McIntyre would win the Undisputed Championship by escaping a cage felt too wild to be true. And yet, it was.
In hindsight, perhaps the shock shouldn’t have been so overwhelming. WWE has spent the better part of the last year rebuilding McIntyre as a top-tier threat. His heel turn added depth and menace to a character that had long hovered between fan favorite and forgotten man. Since 2024, McIntyre has been positioned as a serious, dangerous presence — not just a challenger of convenience, but a legitimate No. 1 contender heading into 2026.
The heavily promoted “Three Stages of Hell” stipulation hinted that something significant was coming. Still, there’s a massive difference between a brutal feud-ending match and a result that fundamentally alters WWE’s power structure. This wasn’t just about settling a rivalry; it was about flipping the hierarchy on its head.
The immediate fallout is enormous, starting with WrestleMania 42. Until Friday night, the prevailing assumption was that Rhodes was cruising into Las Vegas as champion, with speculation focused solely on who would challenge him. Drew McIntyre wasn’t even part of that conversation. Now, everything has changed.
Barring another swerve, WWE appears to be heading toward WrestleMania with a heel champion — a rarity in the modern era. That possibility grows even stronger if McIntyre defeats Sami Zayn at the Royal Rumble on January 31. With this year’s Rumble taking place in Saudi Arabia, where Zayn enjoys near-legendary popularity, WWE has the perfect stage to cement McIntyre as a ruthless, unapologetic villain.
From there, speculation is already swirling about a potential McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns rematch at WrestleMania. This time, however, the dynamic would be completely reversed. McIntyre wouldn’t just be the antagonist — he’d be the reigning champion. While it may lack the casual mainstream appeal of last year’s John Cena moment, it has all the ingredients of a compelling main event for core fans.
Regardless of where the story leads, this title win finally gives McIntyre the spotlight he has long deserved. Over the past four years, he has consistently delivered, whether through his cerebral rivalry with CM Punk in 2024 or by elevating a hastily assembled tag match with Jelly Roll into one of SummerSlam’s standout performances. Few wrestlers have been as reliable when called upon.
On a broader level, the biggest takeaway from this weekend is that many of our assumptions about Triple H’s booking philosophy may no longer hold true. The long-standing “rule” that world titles only change hands at stadium shows has now been shattered. If that principle can be discarded without warning, it raises the question: what other unwritten rules are next?
This doesn’t magically solve WWE’s lingering issues. Weekly television has felt stagnant for months, and one shocking result won’t fix that overnight. What it does prove, however, is that the current regime is willing to take risks — and that unpredictability still exists when WWE chooses to embrace it.
In terms of the upper card, this felt like a seismic shift. John Cena hasn’t even been gone a month, and already the villains are back on top. The man Cena once congratulated at SummerSlam has been dethroned again — this time without celebrity involvement or outside interference.
No matter what else unfolds on this European tour, one thing is clear: the Road to WrestleMania 42 just became far more intriguing than it was 24 hours ago.