The World Wrestling Entertainment company or rather known as WWE is most famous for its wrestlers featured within the brand. John Cena, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Undertaker, and most recently with Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. But with this article we will be talking about a former wrestler from the company who is now one of the heads of the company that owns WWE, TKO. We’ll be talking about certain decisions he’s made and some questionable management choices, who am I talking about? I’m talking about Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

On January 23rd, 2024, it was announced that Dwayne Johnson would become a member of the board of directors within TKO, who are most famous for owning the brands UFC and WWE. With The Rock now on the top, he gets a say in what he wants to do for certain storylines within WWE. So using that power, The Rock wanted to do a main event match for Wrestlemania 40 in Philadelphia with his cousin, the Universal Champion at the time, Roman Reigns. The issue with that was Roman was already in a program with Cody Rhodes, so he was forced to move to the side so that we could see The Rock Vs Roman Reigns, which many have considered a dream match. However, this did not go how The Rock intended, many fans were angered by this and wanted to see Cody finish his program with Roman and eventually beat Roman. The fans eventually got what they wanted, but on Night 1 of Wrestlemania, we got a Tag Team match with  Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins on one side and The Rock and Roman Reigns on the other. But Cody Rhodes did end up beating Roman Reigns at Night 2, ending Roman’s 1316-day reign with the championship, and Cody became a world champion for the very first time.

The next night, on the show Monday Night Raw, Cody Rhodes would open the show, celebrating his victory over Roman Reigns. Afterwards, The Rock would show up, and congratulate Cody Rhodes. But later The Rock asked Cody if he could hold the championship, to which Cody agreed, and The Rock told him that it felt right to hold that championship, potentially setting up a program between the two. Fast forward to October, at the WWE event Bad Blood, Cody Rhodes was in a tag team match with Roman Reigns as his partner. After the match, Cody and Roman were confronted by The Rock, and on the stage, he simply counted down 1, 2, 3, with his fingers. No one knew what that meant, so that left many fans confused as to what that could mean. This later led to much anticipation of The Rock’s next appearance. Many were anticipating his appearance at Survivor Series, he never showed, which disappointed many fans. His next appearance was on January 6th, 2025, on the debut episode of Monday Night Raw on Netflix. What he said during this appearance confused many fans, he gave his congratulations to Cody Rhodes for the year that he had with the WWE Title. This confused fans because in April, they basically teased that somewhere down the line, likely Wrestlemania 41, we were gonna see a match between Cody Rhodes and The Rock for the WWE Championship. But this statement simply ignored that setup and confirmed that we were never going to see that.

For the most recent incident, The Rock appeared on an episode of Friday Night Smackdown. He called Cody Rhodes to the ring and he made an interesting offer to the champion. He offered to make Cody his champion, and make all his dreams come true. He wanted to elevate Cody to The Rock’s status of fame. Cody seemed off on the offer, and The Rock later told him that he wanted his soul, which left confusion and awkwardness with many fans, and a laugh with me. The Rock wanted Cody Rhodes’s answer at the Elimination Chamber event. Fast forward to March 1st at Elimination Chamber, John Cena has just won the Elimination Chamber match and Cody Rhodes comes out to congratulate his future opponent for Wrestlemania 41. The Rock then comes out with rap artist Travis Scott accompanying him. The Rock wants to hear Cody’s answer to his offer to become his champion. Cody then refuses his offer, but afterwards John Cena low blows Cody in what would go down as one of the most important moments in wrestling history. Afterwards Cena beats down Cody along with Rock and Travis. Fast forward once more to Wrestlemania 41, Cody Rhodes goes one on one with John Cena for the Undisputed Championship. Many are expecting Cena to come away with the win with the help of The Rock. However what they got was John Cena winning the record 17th title, but with interference from Travis Scott. So for all fans it was a disappointing main event, many were expecting an appearance from The Rock which definitely was needed to execute a much better story. Afterward, The Rock appeared on an episode of the Pat Mcafee Show to talk about the recent events that took place at Wrestlemania 41. He did say that he could have fixed things, only he could have executed that main event better. He did state that he didn’t know that Travis Scott was gonna appear, but he must have known because he’s in charge. With this statement, he was practically throwing the other WWE executives, like Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, under the bus and saying he was the only one who could have solved this. He also stated that this gimmick that he recently took on in WWE in ‘The Final Boss’ has served his course and he has done all he can do, which is false because we still need the dream match between Rock and Roman Reigns. With this it seems as if The Rock doesn’t care about what the fans want to see with WWE and he is only wanting to do what he wants, originally he wanted to have Cody Rhodes join him in the lead up to Wrestlemania, but WWE wanted to have John Cena turn heel and have him be the bad guy of this feud, which John Cena really wanted to do, and The Rock agreed to it. But originally The Rock didn’t want to take a risk and try something new with Cena even if Cena has done everything as a good guy. The worst part about this is The Rock wasn’t even needed in this storyline, John Cena could’ve turned heel all on his own without The Rock, and it has led to The Rock being completely ignored in this storyline when that part of the story needs clarity.

So it’s time to answer the question, is The Rock ruining the WWE? He has put himself in the main storylines when it is convenient for him, he only cares about pushing his agenda and no one else's, and he doesn’t want to tell a really compelling and interesting story like with Cena’s heel turn. So when it comes to main storylines, he isn’t ruining them, but he is making them worse with his appearances and sudden absences. Now because of these many things, it has led to many people not wanting to see The Rock on WWE TV anymore, which in the long run might be for the best.