The Rock and Roman Reigns in a WWE ring promoting WrestleMania 40.
(Photo Courtesy New York Post)
At last, WWE fans and fans of entertainment can finally rejoice at the news that Dwayne Johnson, or "The Rock" will face WWE superstar Roman Reigns. The match will be held on April 7th at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The question that wrestling fans, entertainment fans, and others want to know is how we finally got here.
For 11 years, there have been lies, and misinformation about The Rock wrestling in a WWE ring again. The Rock’s last match in WWE was against wrestler John Cena at WrestleMania 29 in which he lost.
After the match, The Rock revealed that he had a torn quadricep and had to also do an emergency hernia operation. Since that injury, The Rock has always made guest appearances on Monday Night Raw, Friday Night Smackdown, house shows, and Paper View Events. Every time he returns to WWE, he always calls it home.
The Rock during a sit-down interview once said his favorite wrestler to watch is Roman Reigns whose real name is Joe Anoai. The Rock and Reigns are cousins in real life and both their fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and cousins were wrestlers in WWE during the 1970s.
Regarding all of this, The Rock in the past couple of weeks has made it known that there was a possibility last year that he could have had his match against Reigns at WrestleMania 39 in Hollywood.
However, this never happened due to The Rock believing it was not the time and that the younger superstars deserved their moment to shine.
Reigns is considered one of the greatest WWE champions of all time. Reigns has currently held the title for three years to show it is his yard and that he runs WWE.
In the last year, WWE wrestler Cody Rhodes who is the son of Dusty Rhodes has been the face of WWE for the past year. Rhodes, who suffered a major defeat to Reigns at WrestleMania 39 in Hollywood last year, made it clear that in 2024 he must finish his storyline by winning the WWE Undisputed Championship and win it against Reigns.
At the 2024 Royal Rumble event, Rhodes entered the Royal Rumble and won for the second year. It was clear that Rhodes would challenge Reigns at WrestleMania 40.
However, Rhodes made it clear on Friday Night Smackdown that he wants everything in the WWE about championship belts but does not want Reigns at WrestleMania 40. After Rhodes said what he had to say, The Rock came out and thanked Rhodes. The Rock and Reigns had the stare-down that people have been waiting years for.
After the closing of Friday Night Smackdown, WWE announced that The Rock will face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 and a press conference will happen later this month.
WWE fans took their opinions, and anger on social media calling out WWE for not finishing Rhodes's storyline and comparing Rhodes's current situation with wrestler CM Punk
It has been seen on the WWE YouTube page that the faceoff between The Rock and Roman Reigns received 200,000 dislikes in 9 hours and it is the most disliked WWE YouTube video of all time.
Fans are claiming the reason why The Rock got his WrestleMania match is due to recently becoming a member of the TKOGRP board of directors for WWE and UFC.
At the end of the day, WWE fans should appreciate that WWE is growing and will continue to grow. The upcoming match between The Rock vs Roman Reigns will be the greatest in WWE history and will draw views like never before. This is between cousin vs cousin and wrestler vs entertainer. This is what WWE fans wanted, what the media wanted, and now it’s finally here.
Have an opposing viewpoint to this opinion? Let us know. All views are welcomed. Send your thoughts to our Editorial Staff – Editor Dylan Hicks dhicks@student.dean.edu or Dean was Daily Faculty Advisor, Professor John Rooke jrooke@dean.edu