The Bloodline has leveled up. This past Friday on WWE SmackDown, Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns introduced Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson into his familial faction. The Rock went on to explain that the WWE audience is responsible for his allegiance to WWE’s top heel stable, noting that the “Cody crybabies” brought out a side of him that has laid dormant for decades. He acknowledged that this was not WWE’s original plan, as the long-awaited Rock vs. Roman match was “in your hands,” but the backlash to WWE’s pivot away from Cody Rhodes finishing his story left him with no choice but to side with his blood.
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That said, The Rock is already planting seeds for his inevitable turn on his cousin.
The Rock Teases Turning on Roman Reigns
Has The Bloodline been injected with a lethal dose of poison?
During this past Friday’s WWE SmackDown, The Rock explained his decision to join forces with Roman Reigns, Solo Sikoa and Jimmy Uso. As he bashed the Salt Lake City crowd and the “Cody crybabies,” The Rock made a notable physical shift in where he was pointing his words.
“Cody Rhodes, let The Rock make one thing perfectly clear,” The Rock began before pointing in Reigns’s direction. “The Rock is going to do everything in his power to make sure that you walk out of WrestleMania what you are, which is a loser.”
Reigns’s special counsel, Paul Heyman, picked up on this, looking at The Rock with confusion before glancing at Reigns with concern.
The segment then concluded with The Bloodline all throwing up ones in unison, The Rock included. Social media would joke that The Rock got the hand signal wrong, as rather than clasp his thumb to his palm, he stuck it out, making something that looked more akin to AEW faction Bullet Club Gold’s “guns up.”
However, this slip might have actually been another deliberate tease. The Rock’s rogue hand signal took the form of an “L,” which is a physical gesture that articulates his prior “loser” comment directed at Reigns.
Another sign that this “L” was intentional comes in how The Rock presented it. The Rock delivered his closing “if ya smell” while holding the microphone in his right hand, then switched the mic to his left hand in order to throw up the “L” with his right. As evident by Reigns and Sikoa’s ones, The Bloodline’s hand signal is not specifically right or left. The Rock holding up the “L” with his right hand shows he made a deliberate effort to ensure that it was facing forward to the camera, furthering indicating that this was no mistake.
As Reigns himself has emphasized before, everything within The Bloodline’s stories has meaning.
“We’re not gonna run it like TikTok, or like a YouTube short. We’re going to have to expand you people. We’re gonna have to open your attention span,” Reigns said in April 2023. “You’re going have to pay attention for longer than 20 seconds because that’s what we do. It’s not fast food. We’re giving you the good stuff.”
WWE’s Long Game For Rock vs. Roman
All of these Easter eggs feed the “long game” narrative.
Leading up to his WWE return, The Rock continuously emphasized that he is a “long gamer.” This left many confused as the initially rushed booking of Rock vs. Roman for WWE WrestleMania 40, as if that match went as planned, it would’ve had just two months of build.
If these turn teases lead to The Rock backstabbing Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 40, it gives him the opportunity to execute a year-long narrative towards a WWE WrestleMania 41 encounter with the Tribal Chief. The Rock previously stated that his handshake agreement to face Reigns at WWE WrestleMania 39 fell through due to the two sides being unable to find a path to the match that had never been done before. While this potential year-long build will echo comparisons to The Rock vs. John Cena’s program at WWE WrestleMania 28, the familial connection between Rock and Reigns takes it to that “never done before” level.
WWE WrestleMania 40 goes down on April 6th and April 7th.
