The Rock Reflects on His Surprise WWE SmackDown Appearance

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made a surprise appearance on this week’s Friday Night SmackDown, tearing down Austin Theory in a show-opening promo and embracing John Cena backstage. Johnson hadn’t been seen on WWE programming since SmackDown’s FOX premiere in 2019 and his return produced massive numbers for the Blue Brand’s ratings and WWE’s YouTube and social media posts. Johnson took to Twitter on Sunday and thanked fans for their overwhelming reaction to his return. 

“I was – I’m still – completely blown away by this crowd reaction in Denver this past Friday night on SMACKDOWN,” Johnson wrote. “My appearance was a 💯 surprise to everyone and this crowd of 14,000 erupted with the roar of 100,000 strong. Top 5 loudest crowd reaction of my career 🤯🥹🙏🏾 (which I was like ‘holy s—’ when I walked out 🤣) I’m so grateful and humbled by this. I never take it for granted and ‘coming home’ will always be sacred to me. Thank you my guy PatMac, the talented Austin Theory, @wwe family backstage, Team Rock behind the scenes – everyone who joined us to go ALL IN. But most importantly, thank you with all my love, gratitude and respect, to THE PEOPLE. Our connection is real. Electrifying. ~ people’s champ ✊🏾” 

The Rock Says a Match With Roman Reigns Was Originally Booked for WrestleMania 39

Johnson broke major news on The Pat McAfee Show hours before he popped up on SmackDown, confirming that he was in talks with WWE for a match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 39 this past April. The plans were never finalized and Reigns would eventually take on Cody Rhodes and defend his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship. Johnson made a surprise appearance on this week’s SmackDown and interacted with Austin Theory and Cena.

“The Rock headlining WrestleMania with Roman Reigns, SoFi Stadium, that was locked. We were doing it,” Johnson said. “In the beginning of 2022, (WWE CEO) Nick Khan was very instrumental in bringing Vince and I together. We all flew to LA. We met. We sat. We broke out the Teremana, and about an hour later we started talking about the potential of what this match could be. Myself and Roman Reigns headlining WrestleMania at SoFi. We shook hands and we hugged right there and said, ‘Let’s do this.’”

“The north star thought was let’s not do something good, let’s not do something great, let’s do something unprecedented. A match? Great. Roman’s an incredible athlete. He’s going to be on Mount Rushmore. The bigger thought was what can we do for the fans where WrestleMania isn’t the end of something, it’s actually the beginning of something bigger. We got really, really close but we couldn’t actually nail what that thing was,” he added.

WWE Pay-Per-View Schedule for The Rest of 2023

WWE has just three pay-per-views booked for the rest of 2023 — Fastlane at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis (Oct. 7), Crown Jewel on Nov. 4 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (location TBA), and Survivor Series on Nov. 25 at the Allstate Arena outside of Chicago.