Dwayne ‘’ Johnson made a surprise return to on Friday Night SmackDown this week and fans are wondering if he’s properly back.
The Great One stepped out in front of an incredibly passionate crowd in Denver, Colorado – who were also treated to – to trash talk former Champion Austin Theory before laying him out with a People’s Elbow.
The legendary wrestler turned Hollywood star interrupted an exchange between Theory and Pat McAfee, and took no prisoners as he delivered a roasting like only The Rock can.
In the end, things certainly got physical as the Great One, before encouraging McAfee to hit Theory with one of his own.
It was a fantastic moment for fans on the first ever episode of WWE television since the .
Now, the question remains whether or not The Rock is actually back – and it seems more likely than ever that fans will see the People’s Champion around over the next eight months.
Before turning up on SmackDown, Dwayne was a guest on The Pat McAfee Show and revealed some interesting tidbits about a heavily rumoured dream match against his cousin Roman Reigns.
In fact, he admitted an epic showdown with the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion earlier this year, but plans fell through.
‘The Rock headlining WrestleMania with Roman Reigns, SoFi Stadium, that was locked,’ he said. ‘We were doing it.’
It all started when he joined Vince McMahon and Nick Khan for a meeting at the beginning of 2022, which saw them discuss ‘the potential of what this match could be’, with the annual extravaganza taking place in Hollywood.
He continued: ‘We shook hands and we hugged right there, all three of us at the table, and said, “Let’s do this”. So then we had a year to really think about this. So the north star thought was, “Okay, let’s not do something good. Let’s not do something great. Let’s do something unprecedented.” ‘
Everyone involved decided the match had to be ‘the beginning of something bigger’ rather than the end goal, and unfortunately they couldn’t settle on what that meant.
However, there’s still a very big chance it could happen when the annual event heads to Philadelphia in April 2024, with The Rock confirming he’s ‘open’ to the idea.
‘We got really, really close, but we couldn’t actually nail what that thing was. So we decided to put our pencils down,’ he explained.
‘We agreed, “Hey, listen, there’s a merger coming up, eventually that will happen. There’s WrestleMania in Philadelphia.” I’m saying that’s a potential too. I’m open!’
