A new report has suggested that original plans for Survivor Series would have seen WWE legend The Rock appear in person at the event.
Survivor Series 2021 marked the 25th anniversary of the The Rock’s WWE debut. On that night in 1996, he teamed with Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Marc Mero and The Stalker to take on Hunter Hurst Helmsley (Triple H) Crush, Jerry “The King” Lawler and Goldust.
As the match neared it’s conclusion, the young rookie dodged a Heart Punch from Crush before eliminating him with a Cross-body. Leaving him to secure victory as the lone-survivor for his team by pinning Goldust after a Shoulder Breaker.
To celebrate The Great One’s first steps in a WWE ring, the most recent edition of the event featured clips from his illustrious career as well as a whole host of egg-based cross promotion with his latest movie Red Notice.
However, despite this, The Rock was absent from the event much to the disappointment of many in attendance and watching at home.
In the wake of the event, a new report from Andrew Zarian has now suggested that The Rock was originally scheduled to appear. Zarian explained that he was informed in July that the plan was for the show to be centred around the Hollywood megastar, although this changed in September.
At this point it became apparent that Rock wouldn’t be appearing on the show “due to his filming schedule and needing to quarantine for travel.” Zarian adds that all of the financial obligations and deals to promote Red Notice remained in place, so the show went ahead with “the basic concept” staying the same, just without the star in attendance.
Widley regarded as one of the most popular Superstars of all-time, The Great One hasn’t had a match inside a WWE ring since 2016, and his brief showdown with Eric Rowan at WrestleMania 32.
His last ‘real’ contest came against John Cena at WrestleMania 29 where he torn his abdominal adductor tendons off his pelvis in 2013. This reportedly delayed filming of his next movie Hercules, at great financial cost to the studio.