On Saturday night, the WWE WrestleMania XL premium live event from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania featured The Rock and Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns against Cody Rhodes and World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins.
The finish saw Rock whip Cody in the back with the belt, followed by Reigns with a spear to Cody, and then Rock with a Rock Bottom and People’s Elbow for the win. As a result of the victory, Reigns’ Undisputed WWE Universal Title Match against Rhodes tonight is going to be Bloodline Rules.
The former WWE Champion will play Mark Kerr, a two-time UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion, in the film “The Smashing Machine”. The film will be in production for three months, beginning May 1, 2024 and ending August 1, 2024, with filming taking place in Los Angeles, New Mexico, Tokyo, and Vancouver.
The Rock is expected to be off television after Mania, though the company has pushed for at least one more match, possibly in Saudi Arabia. When asked about doing more matches after WrestleMania, Rock addressed his future during the post-show press conference.
“There might be [more matches], The Rock said. “I can’t elaborate that much on that, but there might be. I love what I do. I love our business. I was born into our business. We’ll see.”
Rock was also asked if there was a moment that he knew he wanted to make his return to WWE:
“Yes, there was. When Ari Emanuel called and said, ‘I’m going to buy the company.’ ‘Okay, what does that strategy look like.’ We discussed that. There was talks almost two years ago about me returning to WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles. We thought everything was going to dovetail nicely into that, great story. That didn’t shake out in the way we had anticipated, and that’s okay. I had said back then to the people we were negotiating with, ‘Maybe it’s time to put the pencils down and we’ll revisit when it feels right.’ Between putting the pencils down a year and a half, two years ago, regarding WrestleMania 39, the actuality of the selling of the company, that became impetus to look holistically at doing WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia. A lot of things had to come together. The agreement, the deal, I’m not worried about that, especially when the negotiations are between myself, Ari Emanuel, and Nick Khan. I wasn’t concerned about the agreement. My number one priority was, can I comeback and have real value this time around and not coming back for hot shots or one night. It’s fun, it’s fun for the fans, but I wanted something a lot more substantial, but something we could really build upon. These past two or three months, we’ve been laying ground work nicely and not only building for WrestleMania this weekend, but I think beyond that and the future.”
