The Rock Needs to Stay Away From WWE

WrestleMania 41 left a bitter taste in my mouth. Despite featuring a number of great matches across its two-night run, the main event of WrestleMania, which saw John Cena take on reigning champion Cody Rhodes, ended with a dud. The result of the bout, which saw Cena lifting the WWE Championship for the 17th time in his career, was the right one, and I can’t wait to see what an actual heel championship run for Cena looks like in the final months of his career.

Despite this, the way in which Cena ended up becoming champion was embarrassing and can almost entirely be blamed on The Rock.While The Rock himself wasn’t present at WrestleMania 41, the “Final Boss” set this storyline between Cena and Rhodes into motion. Back in February, The Rock made an appearance on SmackDown and made it known that he wanted to own the soul of Cody Rhodes.



This promo and delivery from Rock was confusing and nonsensical in the moment, and it wasn’t made much better weeks later when he appeared at Elimination Chamber in Toronto, this time with rapper Travis Scott by his side. What happened next has gone viral a thousand times over as Rhodes would shun Rock, only for Cena to turn heel and align himself with the Final Boss, seemingly ushering in a new era of the Authority.At the time, this move was exciting for a number of reasons.

Not only were we finally seeing a heel version of Cena come about after decades in WWE, but he was doing it by working with Rock, who was once one of his biggest opponents. Naturally, it was expected that Rock would continue to play a major part in this storyline moving forward as Cena would push toward WrestleMania and his clash with Cody. But that’s far from what happened.

In short, The Rock hasn’t returned to WWE since this moment at the Elimination Chamber. No Raw appearances, no SmackDown surprises, and nothing at WrestleMania over this past weekend. Despite being the catalyst that caused Cena to become a heel and kickstart this feud, Rock has chosen to be off of WWE entirely.

Not only does this make for a poor narrative, but it resulted in the WrestleMania main event becoming a borderline laughingstock.Instead of seeing The Rock appear in the final moments of WrestleMania, we had to settle for Travis Scott making his return to the ring to throw a wrench into Rhodes’ title defense. Nevermind the fact that Scott has no right being involved in such a high-profile WWE moment (let alone two in a span of months), his three-minute strut to the ring slammed the brakes on any momentum that Rhodes and Cena had built up.

While he ended up being nothing more than a distraction that would allow Cena to win the WWE Championship, it’s obvious that Scott’s role in this match should have been played by The Rock. Not only would this have made more sense narratively and brought this arc full circle, but it would have prevented the blatant stupidity that comes with throwing someone with no wrestling experience into the middle of the biggest WWE event of the year. On Cena’s part, I feel bad that he had to win his 17th WWE Championship in this manner.

Winning it in heel fashion by way of outside interference is something I’m fine with, as it’s a major departure from the norm in the grand scheme of his career. But when fans look back on this moment in the future, questions are sure to naturally arise about why Travis Scott was part of this historic moment at all. There wasn’t a good answer to this question last night, and there almost certainly won’t be in the decades to follow.

courtesy: WWEWhat’s even more frustrating about The Rock’s current role in WWE is that this is the second year in a row that he has thrown a wrench into the plans for WrestleMania. In 2024, he showed up and immediately demanded a title match against Roman Reigns, which WWE initially seemed content to give him. Fans revolted, Cody ended up getting his title shot, and the WrestleMania 40 card ended up being much better for it.

But the fact that The Rock even caused this issue to begin with, only to do a similar thing less than a year later with WrestleMania 41, shows how badly he needs to go away. Look, I get that The Rock is busy. He’s an in-demand actor, he owns a variety of different business ventures, and he can only be in so many places at once.

It’s understandable that he is stretched about as thin as one person can be. But if that’s the case, just stay away from WWE. These brief appearances from the Final Boss are insulting not only to those who consume WWE TV on a weekly basis, but more so the talent like Rhodes and Cena who then have to carry the torch for what he haphazardly sets up.

Unless The Rock really wants to come back to WWE, lace up his boots, and get in the ring for a match, he needs to get lost. While an appearance from one of WWE’s favorite sons used to be electrifying for the millions (and millions) of fans around the globe, Rock has instead come across as nothing more than a narcissistic, out-of-touch part-timer the past two years. Rather than continue to taint his own in-ring legacy, he needs to stay behind the scenes when it comes to his role in operating WWE.

Doing otherwise will only result in Rock getting the same greeting 20 years down the road that Hulk Hogan got on Raw back in January. The post The Rock Needs to Stay Away From WWE appeared first on ComicBook.com.

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