Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson may have made his name in the WWE ring, but his latest return has left many fans unimpressed.
It has been a huge 30 days for the former WWE Champion. As well as recently being granted full ownership of 'The Rock' name and being appointed to the board of the TKO Group - the company that owns both the WWE and UFC - the man known as 'The People's Champ' has also returned to the wrestling ring.
Last month, The Rock made a surprise return to Monday Night Raw to confront former WWE champion Jinder Mahal.
Although the 51-year-old's appearance looked to be just a fun one-off to potentially boost ratings and delight the fans, eyebrows were raised when Johnson ended the segment by calling out 'The Head of the Table' Roman Reigns.
For those who don't follow the WWE, Roman Reigns (real name Joe Anoaʻi), is the current Undisputed WWE Universal Champion... and The Rock's real-life cousin.
Part of Reigns' ongoing storyline has been that he is the 'Head of the Table' for his famous wrestling family, and he has reigned with the world championship for over 1300 days to prove it.
With WrestleMania XL - WWE's biggest annual event - a little over two months away, it looked like the main event was set in stone: It would be Roman Reigns versus current fan favorite Cody Rhodes for the title in a rematch from last year's main event. This would allow Rhodes - son of WWE Hall of Famer Dusty Rhodes - to finally "finish the story" and become the first person in his family to win the WWE Championship.
However, despite winning the company's Royal Rumble match (which guarantees the winner a title shot of their choice at WrestleMania), it appears that the story is changing direction.
On last night's Friday Night SmackDown, Cody told Roman that he would be coming for him... but not at WrestleMania. That's when The Rock came down to the ring and faced off with his cousin - seemingly setting their WrestleMania match in stone.
For many fans, it's the right match, at the right event... at the wrong time. Yes, despite The Rock being one of the biggest names in the history of professional wrestling - and a main event (and money) draw - many fans see this as the legend denying the full-time Rhodes of a place he deserves, and ruining what would be a perfect end to a fantastic title run.
Over on WWE's YouTube channel, the comments speak for themselves.
"A slap in the face of every fan who invested time, money and energy into the damn 'story'", one person wrote.
"That’s so stupid that my mind can’t simply comprehend how someone could make that call and screw everything," another viewer added. And over on X (formerly Twitter), comments were just as critical.
"Awful. Just terrible. Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns should be happening. Not this," one X user tweeted.
Another fan wrote: "WHYYYYY are we actually getting Rock vs Roman? I literally could not care less. Cody was THE choice. Just like he was last year. This actually sucks so much."
As of this writing, dislikes on the video stand at a whopping 179,000 - which is 77% of the Like-to-Dislike ratio, according to Jabrek.net.
In a recent interview with Fox News, Johnson expressed that he and the WWE were "figuring out" a way to make his dream match against Reigns a reality.
"We’re talking about that right now," Johnson said. "I like to consider myself a long-gamer and a builder. The idea of going up against Roman Reigns and creating, if we were to do something like that, quite possibly and I mean this respectfully of all the WrestleManias before… with all the success and build-up of all the WrestleManias in the past, if we were to do something like that, we could possibly put on the biggest WrestleMania of all-time.
"Short answer and long answer is we’re figuring it out."
With several of WWE's top stars currently out of WrestleMania (such as CM Punk and Brock Lesnar), you can't blame WWE for feeling like they had to bring in the star power.
I guess we'll just have to see where this one goes on the road to WrestleMania.
