The Rock recently weighed in on his WWE return and talked about pivoting to his heel turn for WrestleMania 40. The People’s Champ spoke with Will Cain for FOX News Podcasts and talked about WWE pivoting from the original plan of Rock vs. Roman Reigns and more. You can see some highlights below:
On the original plan for the storyline: “The original plan was for me to come back as the baby face, the big baby face come back and face Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship and put on here in Philadelphia, the biggest main event of all time. I believe the qualities of a good leader, not to say that I’m a good leader, but I believe the qualities of a good leader is one who has the ability to pivot, but also make sure that you listen to the people. As I came back, I started to realize that while fans love the idea of The Rock and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania, there was also this other storyline building that they had been invested in for a couple of years with a guy named Cody Rhodes, who, wrestling royalty, Dusty Rhodes is his dad. Dustin Rhodes is his brother.
“One or two things could have happened in that moment, and this happened in January. We could have either kept trucking through. I’m a director of the board. I got a little bit of influence here in the WWE. We could have kept trucking through. The thing that bugged me, I was in Hawaii, and I realized, man, there’s a segment of fans here who are just disappointed. It hurt my heart to think that, well, I don’t want to truck through and leave these fans disappointed. But not only that, we also got a guy in Cody Rhodes who’s been working his ass off for years now. This is his story. Who, by the way, Cody, as we speak very openly here, could not be a better human being. [He was] amazing, understood. ‘I get it. I understand the position we’re in. Rock, you and Roman, biggest ever, I’m here for it and I support you.’ And that’s a big deal for somebody to say, especially in our crazy world of egocentric professional wrestling.”
On pitching his heel turn: “So back in January, I called Nick Khan, our friend. And I said, ‘I have an idea. How about this: why don’t we take care of the people, give them this story of Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns.’ And Nick said, ‘Great.’ I said, ‘However, a little bit of a twist.’ He said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘What if I became the greatest bad guy of all time, and that was the intent and intention?'”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit FOX News Podcasts with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
