Ladies and gentlemen, The Rock is back! Moreover, The Rock is back, and I’m excited for the first time.

For the first time in what seems like forever, The Rock was not welcomed back to WWE screens upon his February 2, 2024 return. Of course, the live crowd still cheered because why wouldn’t you cheer The Rock?

It would be an understatement to say online fans were not happy.

Perhaps it would have been different if he hadn’t returned to take Cody Rhodes’ spot at WrestleMania 40 and face Roman Reigns, but that is part of a broader problem that has plagued Dwayne Johnson’s WWE returns for the last 13 years. Let’s look closer at the issue on hand and how it was fixed.

The Rock’s Previous Returns were Always at Someone’s Expense

Dwayne Johnson stepped away from regular appearances on WWE television after his initial stint ended in August 2004. He would occasionally return via pre-taped promos and made one appearance to induct his father, Rocky Johnson, and grandfather, Peter Maivia, into the WWE Hall of Fame.

However, his extended absence ended on February 14, 2011, during the WWE Monday Night Raw episode, where Johnson made his first live appearance in seven years, announcing himself as the host of WrestleMania XXVII.

What followed was an on-again, off-again three-year return stint with the company where Rocky mixed it up with new members of the WWE roster he had never faced before.

Unfortunately, while it was pretty cool to see him get into promo battles with the likes of John Cena, The Miz, R-Truth, and CM Punk, he always made someone look much weaker by the end.

For example, despite the main event of WrestleMania XXVII being The Miz vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship, more people remember Rock’s involvement than anything in the match.

Granted, the match could have been more forgettable, but some people can’t even tell you who won (Miz won, and he doesn’t even remember winning). However, this pales compared to what The Rock did to CM Punk.

For some context, when Rocky returned in February 2011, Punk was still a member of the New Nexus, but at that point, the writing was on the wall with the faction.

Despite sticking with it until June, Punk eventually quietly abandoned the group on the same night he cut his infamous “Pipebomb” promo to a fallen John Cena and a stunned Las Vegas crowd who had never seen a wrestler air their grievances in a seemingly unscripted manner before.

While Punk was already quite popular before this promo and even had three world title runs to his name, the pipebomb was the equivalent of strapping a rocket to his back, immediately making him the hottest thing in the company.

Suddenly, fans forgot about The Rock and John Cena’s impending clash at next year’s WrestleMania 29 to rally instead for Punk to get the lengthy title reign they felt he deserved for so long.

After a few missteps and some downright awful booking decisions, Punk began his 434-day WWE Title reign at Survivor Series 2011. However, in a pattern that haunted Punk before this run and following it, he was not treated like a top guy in the slightest.

Out of the 15 pay-per-views during Punk’s reign, he only main-evented five of them, with two being against Cena and one being against Rock himself, when he lost the title.

Speaking of Rock, Punk was not allowed to main-event WrestleMania 28 despite being the champion, with him and Chris Jericho having to settle for the semi-main event and Rock vs. Cena closing the show.

Now, this would be understandable for one year. After all, Cena vs Rock was perhaps the biggest dream match in the world at the time, and fans were eating out of The Rock’s hands. However, they didn’t stop there.

At Raw 1000, Rocky returned to challenge the WWE Champion at the 2013 Royal Rumble and encountered Daniel Bryan, Cena, and then-champion Punk, all of whom could be viable opponents.

At this time, Punk was the hottest thing in wrestling since sliced bread, and despite losing out on multiple main events, mainly to Cena, his buzz didn’t waver a bit, and he was still the man, according to fans.

Unfortunately, this didn’t matter to WWE brass, and because of Rock’s return, Punk was forced to turn heel and essentially start his character over.

While Punk was still fantastic in the ring and on the mic, it was a stark difference to see the self-proclaimed voice of the voiceless attack Jerry Lawler and Vince McMahon for cheap heat, duck challengers whom he would otherwise welcome, and shrink in promo battles against the likes of John Cena, whom he would make fun of for “speaking the language of the locals.”

Once again, Punk did an incredible job as a heel, using his natural smugness to his advantage and pairing up with Paul Heyman to keep an iron grip on the WWE Championship. Still, it all had to end at some point and arguably ended in the worst possible way.

Despite verbally destroying Rock in promos, including the infamous “Your hands are too short to box with God” line, the decision was still made for Rock to beat Punk for the WWE Championship at the 2014 Royal Rumble.

Despite being put through a table by The Shield, Rock recovered and pinned Punk after a People’s Elbow (A People’s Elbow!) to win his first WWE Championship in 11 years.

Compared to Punk, who defended his strap whenever he could, Rocky only managed one successful defense, a rematch against Punk at Elimination Chamber, before dropping the belt to Cena of all people in their “Twice in a Lifetime” showdown at WrestleMania 29.

Punk would never sniff another title in WWE and walked out of the company exactly a year later after the 2014 Royal Rumble due to creative frustrations and burnout, plenty of which was caused by his run as world champion.

Despite his three-year return run ending here, Rocky was not done making others look worse whenever he returned.

Despite spending most of his time trying to diminish CM Punk, Rock still found time to make others such as Damien Sandow, Cody Rhodes, Erick Rowan and The Wyatt Family, Rusev, and Roman Reigns (despite helping him) look like B-characters.

Because of this, fans were understandably furious when Rocky returned on February 2, 2024, to confront Roman Reigns, apparently with the blessing of Cody Rhodes.

After watching Rhodes making his triumphant return to the company at WrestleMania 38, put on an incredible Hell in a Cell match with Seth Rollins despite a completely torn pectoral muscle, win the 2023 Royal Rumble, lose at WrestleMania, and work his way back to another Rumble win, people were not ready for Rhodes to give up on his “story” to appease Dwayne Johnson’s ego.

After all, it is no coincidence that Johnson magically returned to wrestling after Black Adam was labeled a critical and commercial failure.

Despite appearing again as the all-conquering “People’s Champ,” fans saw right through Johnson’s act and revolted on social media, starting the hashtag #WeWantCody out of anger and frustration that their golden boy would be denied his crowning moment again.

Of course, it did not help that Reigns was, at this point, a shell of the champion he used to be. Gone were the occasional TV title defenses and weekly promos. Instead, fans would be lucky to see Reigns appear twice a month despite holding the top prize in the company.

It was so bad that WWE had to re-introduce the WWE World Heavyweight Championship to have at least one world champion on TV weekly. Understandably, fans did not like the idea of a part-timer losing the world championship to an even more severe part-time.

If initial plans were to be believed, The Rock would win the Universal Championship at WrestleMania and parade it around Hollywood.

If that wasn’t the case and Roman would retain over his cousin, then we would be in for another year of Reigns showing up every other week and wrestling five times a year in a true lose-lose situation.

Well, how did we get here? How did everything magically work out in the end? How is Cody Rhodes the current Universal Champion, and why do fans love The Rock again?

The Final Boss: Why Pivoting is a Good Thing

It’s simple and, in fact, quite beautiful. WWE and Dwayne Johnson eventually heard the backlash from fans and pivoted hard to give the people what they wanted.

Immediately after Cody gave up his WrestleMania spot to Rock, fans started to revolt, going so far as to boo replays of the segment during live events.

Defenders of the story claimed that WWE and Johnson had already made up their minds and were too powerful to be swayed by a “social media bubble,” but as time passed, it was clear this was a pretty big bubble, and ignoring it would not make it go away.

This led to the pre-WrestleMania press conference in Las Vegas, where the hard pivot was made, and the seeds were planted for WrestleMania 40.

After seeing the backlash towards him and WWE, Johnson decided to turn heel for the first time since 2003, aligning with his brother and slapping Rhodes, who re-claimed Reigns as his WrestleMania 40 opponent.

What followed was a side of The Rock that fans had never seen before. While The Rock gained notoriety in the business as a heel in the 1990s, he was always a cocky, arrogant trash-talker who could back it up in the ring. However, this was not Dwayne Johnson, nor was it The Rock. This was “The Final Boss,” and he was a whole new beast.

Using his legitimate spot on the TKO Board of Directors as a character piece, Rock aligned with The Bloodline on the February 16 episode of SmackDown and started making more frequent appearances on TV for the first time since 2013.

For the first time, younger wrestling fans would get to see a semi-full-time Dwayne Johnson on their screens, cutting promos and talking trash, although it felt different this time.

As Rocky said himself, this was The Final Boss, and he would do anything to get his way, whether it meant undermining wrestlers, backstage talent, officials, or even Triple H.

For the first time, WWE took the past instances of Johnson making other wrestlers look worse to get his way and make it a part of his character.

This gave us such incredible segments such as the return of his famous “Rock Concerts” on the March 15 episode of SmackDown and his brutal beatdown of Cody Rhodes on the March 25 episode of Raw, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest segments in recent WWE history. If you ask fans what their favorite Rock moment was from this year, most, myself included, would point you to this one.

Seemingly free of the need to be the happy-go-lucky Dwayne Johnson of old, The Rock’s seamless transition to being a bad guy again was perhaps the biggest highlight of WrestleMania 40 season.

Back in his element and in love with wrestling again, Rocky’s social media promos were also a highlight of WrestleMania season, where he would ramble on for minutes about Cody Rhodes, the state of WWE, Seth Rollins, and even hurled some jabs at Cody’s dog, Pharaoh.

Moreover, this pivot proved that fans were not exactly tired of The Rock, but they were tired of Dwayne Johnson. Despite being the most detestable heel in the company, even overshadowing Reigns most of the time, fans still cheered for The Rock.

It was never a matter of whether the Rock could still go. Instead, it was whether he wanted to challenge himself and step out of his comfort zone, which resulted in some of the best TV in recent WWE history.

Moments like Rocky beating up Rhodes, referencing Moana in promos where he would talk about beating up Rhodes, making an enemy out of “Mama Rhodes,” and carrying around the “People’s Championship,” a belt given to him by Muhammad Ali’s widow, Lonnie Ali as if it was a legitimate title, not only amused fans but brought them back into the WWE fold, many of whom felt like tuning out after that February 2 episode of SmackDown.

Following WrestleMania, Johnson took a six-month hiatus from WWE to work on other projects, namely filming A24’s “The Smashing Machine.” This time, however, his exit was met with sadness and anticipation of his eventual return.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, fans wanted The Rock back, and they were willing to wait for him, even as Solo Sikoa took over the Bloodline and Roman Reigns himself took a hiatus, returning at SummerSlam 2024.

Sure enough, when Cody Rhodes rumored it on The Pat McAfee Show that The Rock may be returning at the October 5 WWE Bad Blood event, fans were sent into a frenzy yet again, myself included.

Of course, this meant his return would have to close the show, which meant the tag team match of Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns vs. Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu would have to main event over CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre in the Hell in a Cell.

This naturally received backlash from fans who harkened back to the old days of Johnson taking away main event spots from more deserving talent, but this time, it was at least recognized that it would be a different Rock returning.

I am a huge CM Punk fan. I own plenty of his shirts and merchandise, and I even consider him the man who got me back into wrestling when I was at my lowest.

However, even I found myself lobbying for the tag match to main event because of the possibility of The Rock returning, especially after finding out he was in Atlanta for the week. I remember my friend telling me, “I’ve never seen you so anti-punk and pro-rock before. You’re actively lobbying for your favorite wrestler to miss the main event in your hometown because of someone you didn’t like.”

All this is true; I wouldn’t say I liked The Rock before the Vegas presser, and Punk is my favorite wrestler. However, a lot can change in eight months, and whether or not it was Rock’s first choice to turn heel and do what the fans wanted, he did it anyway, and that’s all that matters.

Sure enough, when “Electrifying” blasted through the speakers at State Farm Arena, my section and the rest of the crowd went berserk at the sight of The Final Boss returning.

Even with him only standing on the stage with that same People’s Championship, raising his signature eyebrow and staring down Reigns and Rhodes after their win, it was more than enough to get everyone pumped.

As he put up three fingers, either signifying three months until his full-time return or pointing towards Reigns, Rhodes, and the returning Jimmy Uso, fans knew it was only a matter of time before The Final Boss returned to WWE screens for the long run.

Following the show, as I talked to my friends about the return, I found myself praising The Rock more and more, something I never thought I’d do in prior months.

This time, however, it was different. The Rock is finally willing to play ball and do what’s best for the story instead of returning to fuel his ego, and that means we are in for some great TV soon.

Welcome back, Final Boss. Feel the Mana.

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