The fan reaction to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson returning to challenge Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 instead of Cody Rhodes has been largely negative, to say the least. Fans and media have been critical and baffled by the decision to do so, and social media numbers are starting to reflect this thanks to a record number of dislikes on WWE's YouTube.
WWE posted the entire main event segment from the February 2 edition of SmackDown in quick fashion in what appeared to be an effort to gain traction and hype for The Rock's apparent challenge to Reigns. It doesn't appear to have the intended affect, though, as the video has since become the most disliked YouTube video in WWE's history, according to Fightful.
As of February 4, the near-19 minute segment had over 400,000 dislikes compared to roughly 97,000 likes.
It is a microcosm of the overall fan response online to WrestleMania 40 being headlined by The Rock, and not Cody Rhodes, going against Roman Reigns.
The common argument is that Rhodes' WrestleMania rematch against Reigns is a year in the making and the culmination of Rhodes' story since returning to WWE in 2022. In contrast, fans argue The Rock seemingly forcing his way into the title match against Reigns effectively ruins everything WWE had been building toward since 2023's WrestleMania and could even be symbolic of a possible power play by Rock within WWE and TKO after he joined TKO's board of directors.
Fan sentiment isn't completely unfounded, either, as more reports have emerged about the circumstances surrounding the situation with Rock, Rhodes, and Reigns.
Several reports from insiders like Dave Meltzer and Mike Johnson suggest Rock strongly pushed to do the match to “save” WrestleMania after CM Punk's injury, the negative PR caused by the lawsuit against Vince McMahon, and Brock Lesnar's removal from plans due to being indirectly implicated in the lawsuit. The reports state Rock went directly to TKO higher-ups Ari Emanuel and Nick Khan to push for the match, both of whom backed up Rock's idea.
There have even been suggestions that Rock and his close friend, Brian Gewirtz, could be the “plan B” to takeover WWE's creative if TKO lets go of Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
Follow Us
Subscribe