WrestleMania XL: The Greatest Story Ever Told (Part One)

By Tara Lomax and Mark Williamson


This is the first of three parts on the recent WrestleMania XL and the current revival of WWE. It reviews the interconnected and multistrand storytelling that unfolded over two years leading into the recent event and highlights opportunities for further appraisal. This first part establishes the important role of audience and character in pro wrestling, and overviews key moments for Roman Reigns leading into WrestleMania XL. The second part reflects on long form serialized storytelling in WWE and introduces the story of Cody Rhodes. The third part explores the blurring of reality and fiction that drives pro wrestling storytelling and the role it played in the lead up to WrestleMania XL. Readers who might be interested in this piece include those new to pro wrestling within the context of popular culture and entertainment studies and those curious about WWE’s revival. Italicized text denotes wrestling terms.


World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is in the midst of a revival. This rejuvenation of WWE is a result of new ownership (Endeavor purchased WWE in 2023 and formed The TKO Group with UFC), new creative leadership (Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque became Chief Content Office [CCO] in 2022), and the return of ‘The American Nightmare’ Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 38 (2022). WWE’s renaissance has emerged over the past two years and follows a period of economic and creative decline for the company (largely driven by the pandemic but not entirely), so this resurgence is welcomed by the wrestling business and the WWE Universe (its fanbase); it is also significant for the entertainment industry and its study because it shows what can be achieved when creators reconnect with the distinctiveness of the medium, its history and its audience. Over three parts we will explore the significance of WrestleMania XL (2024), the serial storytelling that led to the event, and its affirmation of a new era for WWE and professional wrestling.

What is Professional Wrestling?

Professional wrestling – or pro wrestling – is a form of live storytelling that revolves around staged combat in a wrestling ring, otherwise called “the squared circle”. In this form, storytelling emerges through the blurring of reality and fiction as pro wrestlers adopt archetypal personas (gimmicks) and form rivalries based on two principal character roles: the babyface (or face) and the heel. These roles are often understood as protagonists (or heroes) and antagonists (or villains) that are associated with storytelling more generally, but the function of these roles is more nuanced in pro wrestling: the babyface and the heel are defined by a relationship with audience.

While it might be easy to simply label the babyface as a heroic ‘goodie’ and the heel as a villainous ‘badie’, this does not quite account for the distinct relationships that form between babyfaces and heels and how the audience can influence these characters and their stories. A heel can be morally ‘good’ and still be a heel if they deny the audience something, or a babyface can behave immorally and be cheered, as with the double turn of Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 (1997). Heels can still be very popular, despite their presentation, as with ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper, Ric Flair, Austin, and The Rock. Pro wrestlers can also move back and forth between these roles based on booking (match and story producing) and audience response. A face that gets a pop and a heel that gets heat signal a successful synergy between the audience and the story (inside and outside the ring).

For most mainstream commentators, pro wrestling’s “fakeness” is a shroud that obscures appreciation of its distinct storytelling qualities and medium specific conventions. This idea of “fakeness” in relation to pro wrestling is really about an ambiguous relationship between fiction and reality, which can be a complex dynamic to manage creatively. WWE storytelling occupies this ambiguous threshold between the real and the scripted through distinctive character types, cause and effect driven by staged (not fake) combat, serialized narration, and audience participation. This is all exemplified by the road to WrestleMania XL.

What is WrestleMania?

WrestleMania is an annual event produced by WWE (formerly WWF) that began in 1985. It is the flagship event of WWE programing that all premium lives events (PLEs) – formerly pay-per-views (PPVs) – revolve around. Historically, each year the “Road to WrestleMania” begins at the Royal Rumble; since WrestleMania XL celebrates the event’s 40th anniversary, this event also culminates 40 years of WWE history. It is also the first WrestleMania without a member of the McMahon family running WWE.

Image 1: WrestleMania XL held at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia (April 6-7, 2024)

Taking place in Philadelphia over two nights on April 6 and 7 2024 and live streamed internationally (image 1), WrestleMania XL broke records including highest attendance and Peacock’s most-streamed entertainment event. According to CCO ‘Triple H’, it is “by every metric the biggest WrestleMania of all time”. What made this WrestleMania so notable is that it was built on a Main Event invested in serialized storytelling that harnessed its relationship with audience. This story is about the babyface, ‘The American Nightmare’ Cody Rhodes – son of the pro wrestling legend, ‘The American Dream’ Dusty Rhodes – finally defeating the long-reigning heel, ‘The Tribal Chief’ Roman Reigns, who is a member of the Anoa’i family and descendent of the great Samoan wrestling dynasty that includes The Rock. Over three parts, this piece explores key moments in this story and its culmination at WrestleMania XL. This part focuses on the story of Reigns, the next part will explore the key moments for Rhodes and the final part will discuss the inclusion of The Rock in the final stage in the story of WrestleMania XL.

Video 1: WrestleMania XL (2024) teaser trailer

Roman Reigns: Heel, Champion, ‘The Tribal Chief,’ ‘Head of the Table’

Going into WrestleMania XL, Roman Reigns had been champion for 1316 days with the help of his manager ‘The Wise Man’ Paul Heyman and his faction ‘The Bloodline’. Over his reign, he developed a reputation for being manipulative, narcissistic, ruthless, and sadistic; his behavior resembled a crime boss more than a pro wrestler, as he ordered ‘The Bloodline’ – his family – to attack opponents and interfere in matches. Through these tactics, Reigns defeated all who challenged him, including Daniel Bryan, Finn Bálor, John Cena, Goldberg, Rey Mysterio, Edge, Randy Orton, Brock Lesnar, Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Logan Paul, and Cody Rhodes – the best of the WWE roster. Reigns built an empire around this domination and demanded that all of WWE acknowledge him as ‘The Tribal Chief’ and leader of WWE (Image 2). By all accounts, Reigns as ‘The Tribal Chief’ exemplified the most archetypal version of the heel as ‘bad guy’, but what the climax of WrestleMania XL reveals is the story of a man broken down by a history of insecurity, betrayal, and rejection.

Image 2: ‘The Bloodline’ (L-R: The Rock, Jimmy Uso, Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa, and Paul Heyman) and the WWE Universe (the fandom) acknowledging Roman Reigns as the ‘The Tribal Chief’ on Smackdown (March 1, 2024).

Reigns was previously a member of a babyface faction called ‘The Shield’, together with Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. ‘The Shield’ had been in a feud with ‘The Authority’, a heel faction principally made up of ‘Triple H’, Vince McMahon, and Stephanie McMahon with associate members including Orton, Kane, and Batista. ‘The Shield’ broke up on Raw in 2014 when Rollins joined ‘The Authority’ after hitting Reigns in the back with a steel chair and making a heel turn (video 2). This is a linchpin moment in Reigns’ story that will continue to repeatedly haunt him.

Video 2: Rollins hits Reigns with a chair on Raw (June 2, 2014).  

Over the years that followed the break-up of ‘The Shield’, Reigns was booked as the top babyface of WWE, to mixed audience responses. His appearances at major events, including the Royal Rumble (2015), WrestleMania 33 (2017), and the “Raw after Mania” (2017), were met with loud groans – this was not heat for a heel, but a rejected babyface (video 3).

Video 3: Reigns is booed on Raw (April 3, 2017)

This fraught relationship with the audience continued until 2018 when he announced a break from WWE to treat leukemia (which he had been battling privately for 11 years prior). His return in 2019 was met with some cheer, but he was still not fully embraced as a leading babyface. This points to a further dimension in the relationship between storytelling and audience in pro wrestling: the perception of audience agency and story causality. It was not necessarily Reigns himself who the audience rejected, but the consistent presentation of him as an unstoppable babyface, despite their vocal disapproval.

Like with all forms of live entertainment, the pandemic put WWE and WrestleMania at risk of collapse: WrestleMania 36 (2020) took place in the WWE Performance Centre where the only fan in sight was a ceiling fan. During this period, WWE trialed multiple ways to simulate the audience or facilitate their remote engagement, from the digital faces of the ThunderDome to piped-in sound, but it remained clear that pro wrestling is nothing without a live audience (image 3).

Image 3: (Left) WrestleMania 36 (2020) in an empty WWE Performance Centre; (right) Digital faces of the ThunderDome.

For Reigns, the coronavirus outbreak posed a higher health risk and so he took a five-month hiatus, which allowed him to also reassess his career and consider retirement. During WWE’s time of crisis, Reigns fortunately returned with a new heel attitude and a manager, Heyman (Image 4). In his return match at Payback (2020), he won the WWE Universal Championship in a “Triple Threat” match with ‘The Fiend’ and Braun Strowman (image 5).

Image 4: Reigns returns with Heyman on SmackDown (August 28, 2020)

Image 5: Reigns (with Heyman) wins the WWE Universal Championship at Payback (2020)

After years of resisting the audience’s disapproval, the heat was now in sync with booking intensions. Reigns had fully embraced his new heel role, to the point that he would inflict brutal violence on his own cousins – twins Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso – to show his dominance and make them subservient. At Hell in a Cell (2020), Reigns forced Jey Uso to surrender in their “I Quit” match by choking his brother Jimmy Uso and so ‘The Bloodline’ and Reigns as ‘The Tribal Chief’ were born (Video 4). Reigns would go on to reinforce his dominance in a feud with Lesnar to also win the WWE Championship in a “Winner Takes All” Main Event at WrestleMania 38 (2022) to become the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion (image 6).  

Video 4: Reigns defeats Jey Uso at Hell in a Cell (2020)

Image 6: Reigns becomes Undisputed WWW Universal Champion at WrestleMania 38 (2022)


The development of ‘The Bloodline’ involved multiple story angles and archetypes, as Sami Zayn was introduced as the outsider looking for protection and Solo Sikoa (The Uso’s younger brother) took on the role as sadistic enforcer. Bestowed with the title of ‘Honorary Use’ to recognize this allegiance to ‘The Bloodline,’ Zayn was driven to prove his loyalty by sacrificing his long-term friendship with Kevin Owens at Survivor Series: WarGames (2022). This loyalty was put into question again: in the aftermath of Reigns defeating Owens in the Main Event at the 2023 Royal Rumble, Zayn was ordered to bludgeon Owens with a steel chair; instead, Zayn picked up the chair and – harking back to Rollins in 2014 – hit Reigns in the back, thus ending his allegiance with ‘The Bloodline’ (video 5). While pro wrestling is principally concerned with simulating combat sport, the gangster melodrama quality of the ‘The Bloodline’ story intensified pro wrestling as a serialized soap opera.

Video 5: Zayn hits Reigns with a steel chair at Royal Rumble (2023).

Image 7: Elimination Chamber (2023) poster.

Zayn’s involvement with the ‘The Bloodline’ played a major role in boosting the story’s popularity: it elevated Zayn as a babyface and amplified Reigns as an unstoppable heel. Next to Reigns’ brutal dominance, Zayn represented the underdog and everyman – there was a sense that he had qualities that might just be what was needed to defeat Reigns. However, this hope was lost when Reigns defeated Zayn in his hometown of Montreal in the Main Event at Elimination Chamber (2023) (image 7). Leading into WrestleMania 39 (2023) it became clear that WWE needed a superhero to defeat Reigns (more on this in Part Two).

Go to Part Two

Go to Part Three

Biographies

Tara Lomax is the Discipline Lead of Screen Studies at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She has expertise in blockbuster franchising, multiplatform storytelling, and contemporary entertainment and has a PhD from the University of Melbourne. She has published on media franchising, the superhero and horror genres, entertainment industries, transmedia storytelling, and stardom. Her work can be found in publications that include the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (2024, forthcoming), Senses of Cinema and Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and the edited books Starring Tom Cruise (2021), The Supervillain Reader (2020), The Superhero Symbol (2020), Hannibal Lecter’s Forms, Formulations, and Transformations (2020), The Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production (2019), and Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (2017). She is on the Pop Junctions editorial committee.

Mark Williamson has over twenty years of experience as a performer, promotor, producer and commentator in Australian professional wrestling. He has booked wrestling promotions including International Wrestling Australia (IWA) and Warzone Wrestling, and produced the series Underworld Wrestling (2018-2019), which streamed on Amazon Prime Video (2018-2022) and is now available on Tubi. As a pro wrestling manager, he worked with former pro wrestler and now WWE Raw General Manager Adam Pearce. More recently he has explored the creative opportunities of pro wrestling storytelling through comic books and audio platforms.

Tara Lomax

Tara Lomax is the Discipline Lead of Screen Studies at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). She has expertise in blockbuster franchising, multiplatform storytelling, and contemporary Hollywood entertainment and has a PhD in screen studies from The University of Melbourne. She has published on topics such as media franchising, the superhero and horror genres, licensing, transmedia storytelling, storyworld building, and digital effects. Her work can be found in publications that include the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies (forthcoming), Senses of Cinema and Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and the edited books Starring Tom Cruise (2021), The Supervillain Reader (2020), The Superhero Symbol (2020), Hannibal Lecter’s Forms, Formulations, and Transformations: Cannibalising Form and Style (2020), The Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production (2019), Becoming: Genre, Queerness, and Transformation in NBC’s Hannibal (2019), and Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (2017).