More information has come to light in regard to the power dynamic in WWE following The Rock’s return.
Following the Hollywood star’s return on the SmackDown after the Royal Rumble, fan discourse went into overdrive as it appeared that The People’s Champion was going to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania and Rhodes would have to effectively relinquish his right to challenge The Tribal Chief even though he won the Royal Rumble.
Confirming he would challenge Reigns at Mania, Rhodes derailed Rock’s storyline plans at the press conference and was the catalyst to Rock becoming The Final Boss and aligning himself with Reigns instead of competing against him on The Grandest Stage. Rock and Reigns would be victorious on night 1 and the Hollywood star would also make an appearance in the main event of the Bloodline Rules match on night 2.
A few weeks after all the events of WrestleMania 40 took place, an article by The Wrap called out the Hollywood star for his lack of professionalism and timekeeping on film sets, which also extended to his WWE commitments. The article claimed that The Rock was 3 hours late to his call time on WrestleMania Saturday, which WWE themselves have since debunked. Discussing this article on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer provided more information about the WWE side of things and stated that there was “a lot of manipulation” behind the scenes in the lead-up to the Mania:
“He was defintiely not late for WrestleMania, but it is really interesting. There is a lot of stuff behind the scenes with The Rock that I didn’t realise as far as the whole thing. It’s really obvious to me that there were a lot of games being played earlier this year when it came to the WrestleMania thing. Cody Rhodes winning the Royal Rumble was definitely done to, there’s definitely people who did not want Roman Reigns in The Rock match. There was a lot of manipulation going on that a lot of people are not aware of.
It seemed too convenient to me, but there really was. There’s a lot of reasons for it too. I wouldn’t even call it power plays, but very interesting games were being played on both sides. Actually it’s funny because Roman Reigns and The Rock are cousins and everything. There are a lot of people who wanted Cody Rhodes to get that spot before the fan thing happened and didn’t want Rock to get that spot.
But Rock was going to get that spot unless he volunteered not to have it because he is going to get what he wants. In some ways it’s good and in some ways it’s bad. There’s obviously a lot of people who were resentful. Nobody can say anything bad about him publicly, but there are people who are very resentful of him going ‘I came back and wrestling is cool’ after WWE had a tremendous year and the idea that he is trying to take credit for this resurgence before he came back.”
Continuing, Meltzer added that even though some were not happy about the Hollywood star being back, they were aware of the positive impact it had on the business but were happy that the night he wrestled on was not the most successful one:
“Even people who are very negative on him readily admit that when he came in it made the brand more popular. He drove TV ratings to a great degree, he helped drive this WrestleMania to be the biggest 2-day WrestleMania there’s been. There were people who were defintlely happy that Sunday outdrew Saturday when it came to viewers. But you know, at the same time, Sunday was the climax.
The idea that the match with The Rock and his return did not outdraw Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes. But you can also make the argument that everyone knew that The Rock was going to be involved in that match, too. But the match ended up being, Sunday was the bigger day than Saturday.”
The Rock’s Return Believed To Be Related To A “Losing Streak”
Concluding, Meltzer stated that some within the company felt that Rock’s return was in connection to his Hollywood projects. With his biographical TV series being cancelled and movies underperforming at the box office, there is a belief that Rock returning to WWE was a move that was guaranteed to be a major success:
“There were people in WWE who felt like his return to WWE this year was an attempt to turn around a losing streak so to speak. Young Rock got cancelled, some of his movies weren’t as successful as hoped for and WWE was an easy win.
At the same time, put it this way, they made him a $30 million a year offer to join the Board of Directors, that’s them coming to him, that’s not him coming [to WWE]. And he’s been talking about returning to wrestling literally as far as doing the match with Roman Reigns in 2019 so it’s not something that just came out of the blue because of the idea he wasn’t doing well.”
The premiere date has also been announced for The Rock’s new documentary about WCW.
According to a new report, The Rock was said to be part of a shocking series of events.
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