Survivor Series 2021 featured a surprise on-screen return for Vince McMahon, a golden egg, and a non-appearance from The Rock.
Heading into the show WWE had centred much of its advertising around the 25th anniversary of The Rock’s debut, and this meant many fans expected The Great One to appear, especially when the show also featured a promotional tie-in with his movie Red Notice. However, while Survivor Series came and went without the megastar, a ‘real’ Cleopatra golden egg did make an appearance.
Vince McMahon was shown arriving backstage with the egg but later on in the show, it was stolen. On the following episode of Raw, Sami Zayn revealed it was Austin Theory who stole the egg and that kickstarted a storyline between the pair that ran to WrestleMania 38.
The angle was widely criticised by fans, who were also upset that The Rock didn’t appear despite the show being focused on him.
During an appearance on the Bill Simmons podcast, former WWE writer and SVP of Development at Seven Bucks Productions Brian Gewirtz claimed that he’d been told that original plans were actually “much worse.” Gewirtz added that the creative was even discussed with The Rock.
“I will say this, this is what I was told. Survivor Series, not this past Survivor Series, but the Survivor Series before it, we were doing Red Notice in a product integration in the pay-per-view. And this thing you know, as far as like there was this like magical golden egg that if you recall, it was a much heavily reviled night of creative everybody hated the angle as far as this golden egg that Austin Theory found and Sami Zayn, you know, ratted him out and everything else like that the original creative for that I won’t go into, but just trust me it was much, much, much, much worse.
When I discussed it with Dwayne, I was like, yeah, that’s gotta change. And then I think Vince in the team came up with this egg thing, which most people watching it were, you know, didn’t like it for whatever reason, that’s fine.”
Why Isn’t The Rock Competing At WrestleMania 39?
It was originally believed that The Rock would be returning at WrestleMania 39 to take on Roman Reigns in a huge main event. However, in January it was reported that the star had turned the match down because he didn’t have time to get into ring shape.
Despite this, during the interview, Gewirtz also dismissed this suggestion, claiming that it’s not the reason the WWE legend won’t be wrestling.
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