After two record-setting, extremely well-received surprise appearances at WWE events over the last year, Dwayne The Rock Johnson returned to SmackDown again on Friday, this time to heavily imply he would be wrestling his cousin Roman Reigns in the main event of this year’s WrestleMania. Unfortunately, this appearance was not nearly as well-received. In fact, it has resulted in a backlash of negativity louder and more aggressive than anything we’ve seen in WWE since at least the 2015 Royal Rumble.
I covered exactly what’s going on pretty extensively in this article yesterday, but in short, WWE has been slowly but surely telling the story of Cody Rhodes trying to win The WWE Championship in honor of his late father, The American Dream Dusty Rhodes, who came close but never won the belt. Cody lost against Roman Reigns after outside interference in the main event of last year’s WrestleMania and has been building himself back up again for the last year, trying to earn another chance and "finish his story." He won The Royal Rumble, which gives him the right to challenge anyone he wants at WrestleMania, but instead of challenging Roman, as everyone expected, he said he’d do that later and introduced The Rock, who has apparently decided he wants to headline WrestleMania this year.
