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The Rock appeared on Pat McAfee's ESPN Show earlier today and revealed he watched Wrestlemania 41 from home, saying he wanted the spotlight to be on John Cena.
During his 35 minute conversation with McAfee, Rock also revealed he appeared at The Elimination Chamber PPV in Toronto because Ari Emanuel called him because ticket sales were soft for the show in Toronto. This led to The Rock coming up with the idea for Cody's soul (which he said they would get back to in storylines down the line) and conversations about that idea led to Triple H suggesting the John Cena heel turn.
Rock said:
"Now, keep in mind for us here and all the fans speaking as DJ, as Roc,k Director of the board and not Final Boss, I gotta tell you that let's start with the ending and let's start with John becoming the 17 time Heavyweight Champion and becoming legitimizing himself as being Without question. The goat period, he is on Mount Rushmore now. Gotta kick a guy off to put him on. I think now Dusty goes in the back. He was always on my Mount Rushmore. He goes on the back there with me. I'll be raising my eyebrows back there in the back of Mount Rushmore. But I think that, the way John, at the end of the night, John raising that title, that was the bottom line, that was the North Star, and I loved it. And I love that moment. I think he's gonna go on to have this insane run as a heel. And what I love about this, and what I love about John is, I like to think that I keep not only my finger on the pulse of things, you and I have talked about this. Don't keep your finger on the pulse of, put your whole hand on, on, on the pulse of things and that way things meaning the fans and their sentiment. And I love that the fans are so engaged. They're so connected to John's heel run.
Now I see a few fans saying that, oh, I really don't believe he is a bad guy, so he's playing a bad guy...But here's the thing, you don't have to believe that he's a bad guy. You know why? Because he is not a bad guy. He is a good guy. I've known the guy for 20 years. We've gone up and down to hell and back. We talk all the time, text all the time. He's not a bad guy. He's telling the truth now and you could feel that in his delivery, man, because he's telling the truth. This is 25 years of imagine going out every single night for 25 years, every night, regardless of where you're at, and know that you're gonna get cheered and know you're gonna get booed. And in some places it's even harder. You're gonna get booed out of the building. That's a hard psychological place to be. I give John so much credit when this heel turn, we talked about this heel turn a few months ago and then he did it in Toronto Elimination Chamber, which I'm gonna get to in a second. I said, brother, I give you so much credit and I hope you are exhilarated right now because what you are. Attempting to do takes guts and you are putting it all on the line because there's no blueprint for a heel. John Cena, it's not like we could go back and re-look at the books and go, okay, when John turned heel back in, 2015 it worked well, here's what happened. Here's how we're gonna make it improve. We don't have that. So he was. He was creating it as e went along. He was crossing t's and dotting i's as he moved forward and I thought he was brilliant and I can't wait to see this. He'll run for the rest of the year. Who knows what's gonna happen. I love that there is a specific amount of dates that we have John for, and I love his connection to the audience. Again, he is not a bad guy. He is not trying to play bad.
He's just talking the truth. He said, Hey, I'm fed up with this shit in terms of this really messed up relationship that we had. Okay with the fans, so I got a call about a month before elimination chamber. I get a call from Ari Emanuel, who we know owns TKO. TKO owns WWE, has been my longtime business partner and one of my best friends for over 20 years. He said, we need help. At Elimination Chamber ticket sales are a little slow, but beyond that, he goes, what we are finding is with Elimination Chamber, it's become the pay-per-view that's been interesting. Fans have had fun, but it's also the conduit to WrestleMania and how do we create, I. A elimination chamber that people must tune in to see how do we create that? He goes, right now we don't have that and he said let's have The Final Boss show up. I said lemme give it some thought and lemme get back to you. So I gave it some thought.
I got back to Ari, I got back to Triple H and Nick [Khan]. We had a call and I said, I have an idea. What's most important to the Final Boss?
The most important thing to the final boss isn't titles. It's not money. It's not fame. Been there, done that, and grateful for that. Final Boss wants your soul. And what does that mean? What that means. That doesn't mean, hey, the final boss wants you to act like this, be like this at his beck and call and treat you like crap and make you do all these things that are unbecoming or embarrassing. That's not what the Final Boss wants. That's not how the Final Boss lies. No. What that means is whatever you could think of in your head, so Cody Rhodes, whatever dreams you have, whatever ambitions you have, even if they're dark, even if they're amazing and they're full of light, even if they're scary, whatever those are. You tell the Final Boss, he's gonna make it all happen. You wave that magic wand, he'll make it all happen. So when it comes to giving me your soul, giving the final boss your soul, that is what you want, not what the Final Boss wants,. and so what does the Final Boss get out of that...gets your soul for life. That's what the Final Boss gets out of that.
So now we go into Elimination Chamber with this idea of will Cody Rhodes sell his soul to the Final Boss? And. My thought at that time, and I, you and I might have even talked, I know we talked about this, was it was a litmus test to find out, in my opinion, how will fans respond if Cody sold his soul to the Final Boss Let's get a temperature check on this. Let's establish it. Let's anchor it in....And you come to find out that there were a lot of fans who were saying, sell your soul. Yeah, this is gonna be crazy. Whatever it is, it's compelling, it's gonna be great. Let's do it. Sell your soul. So I was an advocate. That not turning Cody heels soon, but eventually down the line.
I like the idea of that because Cody's a smart guy. He is an intelligent guy. He's a ring general, and I think this idea of you give him a reason to turn way down the road, by the way, you give him a reason to turn, not based on titles, not based on this, but it's his soul and what that means that affects generations. It's transcendent beyond pro wrestling and fans were loving it. As we got closer to Elimination Chamber, we were kicking ideas around myself and Triple H, and that's the fun part. By the way, I've been kicking ideas around with Triple H for 20 years, dude, just always having a great time with him and Nick and my team as well and Triple H said, what about this?
What about John? Turning. I said I love it. I love it. The next question is, you gotta talk to John C how he feels about it. And in a moment where you have this shift in cliff/click moment and it happened to me when I was a pure baby face. I got booed out of the building around the world and they took the title off me, my rookie year and they sent me home in the summer of '97, and I didn't know what I was gonna do. I just knew this is not gonna work for me. I don't even know if a, if I have a future in pro wrestling, I get a call from Vince that says, I'm gonna bring you back as a heel and be part of the Nation of Domination. I said, that's great. I love it. Just gimme two minutes on the microphone to speak from the heart and he did that and things changed immediately that night.
It's the same thing with John. John loved this idea of turning heel, but he is but you know what? There's something, there's an anchor here that I'm gonna root it in, which is a real thing that I've been experiencing over the years, past 20, 25 years. So when we were moving forward with John and this idea of him crowning, getting crowned at WrestleMania. WrestleMania and becoming 17 times [champ] and turning heel...I'm sorry...and then being a heel champion. I knew then the best thing for the Final Boss, we've established this idea of Cody's soul. We can always come back to it. I did feel, and I made the call, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be involved in that step back. Let the Final Boss step back into the shadows. Let all the spotlight go to John. Let it go to Cody. Let's not make it about Cody's soul eventually, or John's soul. No, let's let them do what they do.
I called John after Elimination Chamber, spoke to him, called Cody, and I said, I think the Final Boss's work is done. We've established it. We just pulled off the greatest angle in the history of professional wrestling other than Hulk Hogan turning heel back in the nineties. I said, this is amazing. We have six weeks now. Let's build you guys. Go and crush it and I'll be right there with you and I'm always here if you need me, but I think it's best for the Final Boss not to be involved in that finish. You guys go, it's six weeks to plan for that.
So I love the finish of the match. I would've finessed things a little differently on how they got there, but that's just me creatively. There are a lot of minds in the room. That's my thought. But still, ultimately the bottom line was I love John getting 17. I never had a concern about John pulling this off. My thoughts are always to Cody because of what we've established with him and his story and the kind of babyface that he is. So if done right, and I think it finessed right, and if nuanced right down the road. That guy not only has an incredible babyface run again as champion, but also just an unheard of run as a heel down the road."
On not being involved in the Cena-Cody finish, Rock said:
"...They know when I come to them—and them meaning Triple H and Nick and Ari as well—and I lay this out and I say, “Hey, here’s how I really feel it should go.” We can insert Final Boss in the end of this finish, but then where do we go? There are other commitments that I have, and I want to also be careful that we’re not overstepping and leaning over our skis. Too much here can get involved in the finish. And I said, “But why get involved in that finish when the spotlight should just be on, in my opinion, John—17-time heel champion? What does 2025 look like if this man is saying he’s going to ruin professional wrestling?” That, to me, is the anchoring storyline. It’s not soul right now. Right now, it’s not. But by the way, we’ll go back to it. Ah, we still got it. Still a favorite. We’ll go back. Look, I can’t tell you the texts that I got—and from the guys that I got—who are these top guys who are saying… one in particular, who I love, is my guy. I call him the Superman of the company. He said, “Listen, my soul’s for sale when it’s time.” And I said, “I love it. Let’s do it.” So look, I love Travis Scott being involved, and I’ll tell you why—because he loves wrestling. He’s a huge fan, and he respects it. He’s working his ass off. I know that he has plans to train with Booker T. I don’t know if it’s happening already—it might be, not quite too sure there on his schedule—but he loves the business. Now, I was just as surprised to see Travis Scott as well. And I knew the moment I saw Travis that it immediately amplifies: here comes the Final Boss."
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