The last week has been dominated by conflicting reports regarding The Rock’s status for WWE WrestleMania 41.
Following WrestleMania 40, it was expected that a match with Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes would take place next year. Rock made a surprise appearance following the Bad Blood main event, which saw Rhodes and Roman Reigns defeat Solo Sikoa and Jacob Fatu.
WrestleVotes previously reported that a triple threat match featuring Rock, Reigns, and Rhodes is on the cards for WrestleMania 41. Days later, Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Rock is not scheduled to compete at WrestleMania 41 next April and has stated that he will be unable to do so.
Rock later replied in an Instagram comment to his post, noting, “Don’t believe any of that bull****.”
During the most recent episode of WrestleVotes Radio on SportsKeeda’s Backstage Pass Patreon, it was revealed that plans for The Rock to wrestle at WrestleMania 41 remain in place.
Joey Votes stated, “So what we can add to that is the WWE has long expected The Rock to be available for this year’s WrestleMania. The decision to do the angle with Cody Rhodes on Raw after WrestleMania 40 where Rock had something in his pocket and handed it to Cody, we’re told that those plans have stayed the course, and we are here in October. So everything that they had planned or agreed upon before Philly, leading us into Las Vegas, is the way that things are still. And we are told that The Rock was also clued in on the decision to run Las Vegas when it was Las Vegas and/or Minneapolis. You know, he was involved to a degree, alongside Nick Khan, in locking down that decision. I don’t think it was a Rock decision. Yes or no, I’m certainly sure of that, that he didn’t have the final say, but I’m sure, [he] did give a blessing to say, Yeah, let’s run a legion stadium. Let’s make it the biggest show in the world, and ‘I’d like to be a part of it.’ So with that said, we can pretty confidently say that The Rock is slated to be a part of WrestleMania. Obviously, things can change, but as of right now, look for that man to be at the top of one night, two nights, or either nights. TC, your thoughts overall on The Rock and Wrestlemania?”
WrestleVotes added, “Yeah, the report for Meltzer really caught me by surprise because I had not heard anybody anywhere speculating that The Rock would not be involved in WrestleMania this year in the lead-up to it as well, especially given how close The Rock is with Nick Khan, obviously, Paul Levesque, and everyone else on the board of directors at WWE I don’t think that he would come up to them and say, ‘Sorry guys, my schedule got busy and I’m not going to be able to fulfill these plans that we had laid out a year in advance,’ all the work that he’s done as the final boss and again, obviously showing up at the end of Bad Blood as a surprise. Talk about a surprise appearances. The Rock is the king of the surprise appearance, and gets a bigger pop than anybody. In the entire industry. So I definitely expect to see The Rock up here again as we start to get this Bloodline angle back up and running with Roman Reigns. So when and where we’ll see The Rock is yet to be determined, but be on the edge of your seat because, you know, he will be coming out yet again.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
