Like Many Fans, I Hated The Ending Of WrestleMania 41, And It’s Time To Talk About The Rock’s Place In WWE

The ending to WrestleMania 40 is widely considered by WWE fans to be one of the greatest closing sequences in WrestleMania history. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about WrestleMania 41. Most fans were not happy campers about Travis Scott being featured very prominently in the final moments, and a day later, they remain confused about the story WWE is trying to tell and The Rock’s lack of involvement in it. I’m right there with them. The whole thing was a mess, and it’s time Nick Khan, Triple H and the overseers at TKO take a step back and ask some hard questions about The Rock’s role.

Now, you might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with The Rock? He wasn’t even there last night. Why is he getting dragged on social media? Well, that requires a little bit of backstory casual wrestling fans may be out of the loop on.

After landing a seat on the Board Of Directors after TKO’s purchase of WWE, The Rock has made a bunch of appearances on WWE programming. Last year during the lead-up to WrestleMania, he was a near weekly fixture and delivered some of the best work of his entire career, as he leaned into his new Final Boss character and pushed the envelope with blood, swearing and adult themes. I couldn’t get enough, and most WWE fans were on the same page.

The last year, however, has been another story entirely. The Rock has mostly been gone, and when he has shown up, it’s been confusing and, with one exception, hasn’t lived up to the standards you’d expect. His promos have been rambling and overly repetitive, and there hasn’t been a consistent narrative being told. That all seemed to change at Elimination Chamber though.

After months of sporadic mentions and a collective confusion about whether he’d play any kind of role in WrestleMania at all, The Rock showed up alongside Travis Scott at the PPV before ‘Mania and conspired with John Cena to betray Cody Rhodes. The heel turn was perfectly executed and was shocking for fans, as Cena has been the ultimate WWE good guy for decades. Most of us never even considered the idea that he’d play a bad guy during his final WWE run. Immediately, wrestling fans went into fantasy mode, speculating why Cena sold his soul to The Rock and predicting all the cool stuff we might see from their partnership.

But in the roughly six weeks between Elimination Chamber and ‘Mania, The Rock didn’t appear on WWE programming, nor did his sidekick Travis Scott. Even more bizarrely, they were barely mentioned. Cody and Cena gave us multiple promo battles in which they talked about their motivations for their upcoming match and The Rock was barely discussed. Even on commentary, we’d only get a passing reference here or there.

Eventually, fans came around to the idea that The Rock was just there for a one-off appearance and they should focus solely on Cody and Cena and invest in their story, which was fine. I didn’t need The Rock to get excited about this generational main event. Cena trying to win his 17th Championship and Cody trying to stay at the top of the card was more than enough reason to care.

But then, after mostly ignoring The Rock part for six weeks, the ending to their WrestleMania main event match was interrupted by Travis Scott. Not The Rock. Just his henchman Travis Scott. So, to explain things in a different way, the last two WWE PPVs, including the biggest one of the entire year, ended with celebrities, who didn’t make any appearances on WWE television in the six weeks in the middle, playing prominent roles.

Look: being a wrestling fan sometimes feels like a full time job. There’s five and a half hours of main roster programming every week, and there’s another three or four hours during whatever weekend each month has a premium live event. The people watching all that programming, the people like me, we’re the ones paying WWE’s bills. We’re the ones buying merchandise and action figures and helping WWE get billion dollar contracts from Netflix. But sometimes it feels like The Rock and WWE don’t care about us. Instead, it feels like they care about trying to create a moment that’ll go viral on social media.

Did you hear Travis Scott showed up to WrestleMania and got involved with Cody Rhodes? That might be a fun conversation for casuals or people who don’t really care about wrestling, but to those of us watching every week, we’d write that sentence another way. Did you hear what was supposed to be the biggest wrestling match of the year was interrupted by a celebrity who has only made a handful of appearances in WWE over the last year? Even worse, The Rock, who was the supposed mastermind behind it all, didn’t even show up. He just sent his celebrity henchman.

The number one rule of wrestling is that no one is bigger than wrestling itself. WWE and TKO need to remember that. Having The Rock around can be fantastic, but it’s not worth it if it comes at the expense of telling coherent stories. It’s not worth it if his inconsistent presence overshadows what is supposed to be the biggest story going in the entire industry. It’s not worth it if he’s using his influence to put 10% of the attention during the final match of WrestleMania on his buddy Travis Scott.

I don't know exactly who booked the final sequence of WrestleMania 41. I don't know whether The Rock was involved at all, if Triple H wanted to do this or if TKO pushed to include more star power. I'm not working behind the scenes, but as a wrestling fan, this doesn't work for me and judging by social media, it doesn't seem to work for anyone.

I love it when celebrities and legends show up. Wrestling is a big tent, and I like the variety show. Nostalgia and A-listers are great. Nostalgic A-listers are even better, but if they're going to get involved with the A-plot of the show, they need to treat it like it's their number one priority. If they don't, it makes the plot itself look stupid. It makes it feel like wrestling fans are supposed to be happy that they're willing to give us a little bit of their time, even if it doesn't make logical sense with the narrative being told.

I’m watching wrestling because I like wrestling. I’m watching it because I care about the characters I watch every week and because I want to see their storylines play out. The Rock and Travis Scott might get big pops from live crowds who are surprised and stoked to see them, but from the comfort of my couch, it's very obvious John Cena's heel turn didn't need them and this WrestleMania season would have been better without them.

WWE would be wise to think about that, as they consider when to use The Rock and Travis Scott and how to use them moving forward.