The Rock and Roman Reigns defeated Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins in the main event of WWE WrestleMania 40 Night One. During the post-show press conference, Rock spoke about the original plan to face Roman Reigns and how he and others at WWE listened to the fans and pivoted, and also teased surprises for WrestleMania 40 night two. Highlights of his comments are below.
On the original plan for his WWE return and the story behind pivoting: “One of the many benefits of this world of professional wrestling, I believe, is you have the opportunity to not only hear the fans, but more importantly than hearing the fans is listening to the fans, because to me there is a distinct difference between hearing and listening. And then the other part, perhaps the most important part, is then take action. So the pivot you’re talking about, it was an opportunity in front of us, so when I came back, the goal was to come back and it was going to be The Rock and Roman Reigns, that was the idea, this was back in, I think I made an appearance on Smackdown in Colorado, third quarter of last year, and the idea was to start setting the table of a Rock and Roman WrestleMania main event, so as we continued to stand everything on its feet, we realized that we had an opportunity to listen to the fans.”
On the decision to pivot: “One of two things could have happened. We could have trucked through it, which there were a few opinions in the room, of course we named them the Cody Crybabies, which is fun branding, but the truth is they matter, fans matter, their voice matters, and we had this opportunity to really listen to them. So again, we could have trucked through, or listened, and in this case, it became crystal clear to me after Birmingham, Alabama, where we had that moment in the ring, we came in, Cody in essence passed the opportunity on to me, Roman and I had that face-off, and it was just a few days after that that I was in Hawaii and I remember waking up and going, I think I have what this pivot should be, and that is not only listen to the fans but let’s give them what they want, what they’ve invested in for the past couple of years now, which is this idea of Cody Rhodes completing his story.”
On the fun part for him of the pivot: “But then the B-side to that, the exciting part for me, was to deliver something for the fans, but also, now lets make a change, lets go Rock 10.0 and what that looks like, and what Final Boss looks like, and let’s take the agreement and deal of the appointment of the board as a director, the ownership of the name The Rock and all that goes along with it, let’s utilize that and leverage that in a real way, and that real influence of power, and inject it into the storyline as Final Boss. So bottomline is, I couldn’t be happier with the pivot, but more importantly everybody buying in to that.”
On if we can expect surprises at WrestleMania 40 night two: “You can. Final Boss can’t tell you that, I can’t tell everybody that. I have to keep everybody guessing, including Cody Rhodes, that’s important, so yeah, great question. You can sure expect the unexpected and a lot of surprises. Appreciate you taking a swing. Take a shot at it. What can we expect.”
If using any of the above quotes, please credit 411mania.com for the transcription.
