Due to movie commitments outside of the country, The Rock could not appear at the 2021 WWE Survivor Series PPV for the 25th anniversary of his WWE debut. The company ended up showing footage from his career during the event. There was also an angle in which Vince McMahon displayed a “Cleopatra Egg” that The Rock had given him. McMahon stated that the egg, which appeared in The Rock’s film Red Notice, was worth $100 million dollars. After the egg went missing, Vince ordered Adam Pearce to interview the entire WWE roster.
Former WWE writer and The Rock’s friend Brian Gewirtz discussed the angle on The Bill Simmons Podcast:
“We were doing Red Notice product integration in the pay-per-view. There was this magical golden angle that If you recall, it was a heavily reviled night of creative, everybody hated the angle as far as this golden egg that Austin Theory found and Sami Zayn ratted him out and everything else like that. The original creative for that, I won’t go into, but just trust me, it was much, much, much worse. When I discussed it with Dwayne [Johnson], it was like, ‘Yeah, that’s gotta change.’”
“And then Vince and the team came up with this egg thing which most people watching it didn’t like it for whatever reason, that’s fine, but I was told that during those vignettes where Sami kind of stooged off Austin Theory and wanted him to be punished and then was put in a situation where – whatever the creative was – that was the turning point as far as Vince going, ‘Hey, this Sami is… I mean, I always liked him but…’ I think we should look at that egg angle now a little bit differently and perhaps give props to the golden, magical, $100 million egg because – listen, talent always rises to the top and Sami is amazing and would have risen to the top anyway – I just thought it was funny that it was those vignettes where Vince really took notice as far as Sami as a performer.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to F4WOnline.com for the transcription)
