Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is synonymous with insane crowd reactions and loud ovations, but it appears even he hasn’t seen everything.
In his first return to the WWE following his addition to the TKO board of directions, The Rock found himself surprised by the reaction, both good and bad.
As he always does, the ever-affable People’s Champion went on Instagram to say that he was “f#%king blown away,” describing the pop he received from the Birmingham, Albama crowd as “one of the loudest ovations” of his storied career.
Unlike his previous appearances, The Rock’s arrival in the February 2 episode of Friday Night SmackDown wasn’t as big of a surprise. He had returned earlier in the year to make history. Many expected this to mean he’s taking Cody Rhodes’ spot at WrestleMania 40 and main event it with his cousin, Roman Reigns. This is exactly what happened.
A few days after Seth Rollins challenged The American Nightmare on the January 29 episode of Monday Night RAW to take away from him what he basically described as the better title belt at WrestleMania 40, Cody Rhodes confronted Roman Reigns in the middle of the ring. As always, he drew applause from the crowd, even more so when he teased that he always intends to finish the story. But just as most would’ve expected him to challenge The Head of the Table for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in April, he deferred to The Rock.
As expected, the crowd roared as The Rock’s signature music played and he walked onto the stage, exchanging words with Cody Rhodes, and staring down Roman Reigns in the middle of the ring.
We didn’t get to see The Rock in action this time around, but this segment all but confirmed that The Rock vs Roman Reigns will finally happen at WrestleMania 40.
Members around the WWE Universe have argued that The Rock planted the seeds for this matchup years ago when he finally and publicly endorsed at the 2015 Royal Rumble Match by helping him win.
Unfortunately, The Rock might not have chosen a worse time to make this fight happen. The backlash following the segment has been obvious, with the likes of Logan Paul joining the #WeWantCody movement, which remains a trending topic as of the moment of writing. This is presumably WWE’s way of burying the headlines surrounding Vince McMahon’s resignation and it’s working. But the WWE will still have to address the increasingly negative reaction to a once-in-a-lifetime match for WrestleMania XL.
The WrestleMania 40 kickoff press conference is on Thursday, February 8. Both The Rock and Roman Reigns are confirmed to be in attendance. If the backlash is still as bad if not worse, the WWE will have to do some creative narrative maneuvering.
If the anger mellows, scheduling The Rock vs Roman Reigns to main event The Showcase of the Immortals is the best way for TKO to kick off the WWE’s first WrestleMania since last year’s merger.
