Finally, The Rock has resumed his role as the People’s Antagonist.
For those not in the pro wrestling know, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been thrust into a controversy at the upcoming WrestleMania, involving an angle that has been running on two tracks for multiple years.
On Thursday’s edition of “The Pat McAfee Show,” The Rock returned to his roots as a wrestling heel, trolling the biggest diehard fans in the WWE universe.
At 1,257 days, Roman Reigns is closing in on the the third-longest championship reign in WWE history, trailing Hulk Hogan’s 1,474 days by fewer than 200 by the time WrestleMania happens in April (Bob Backlund’s 2,135 days and Bruno Sammartino’s 2,803 days are probably out of reach).
For several years, WWE has been teasing Reigns vs. The Rock, as Reigns has been referring to himself as the tribal chief and head of the table as leader of “The Bloodline,” and in WWE lore the two are said to be cousins.
Meanwhile, Cody Rhodes has been on a two-year odyssey to “finish the story” since returning to WWE, with the idea of defeating Reigns for the coveted championship that his father, the late great Dusty Rhodes, never won.
Rhodes and Reigns main-evented last year’s WrestleMania in Los Angeles, and the audience has become increasingly obsessed with the idea of Rhodes dethroning Reigns.
When Rhodes won this year’s “Royal Rumble,” it seemed clear that he would once again challenge Reigns in the ‘Mania main event — until last week when WWE’s other champion, Seth Rollins, started needling Rhodes to rekindle their own feud instead, and then Rhodes went out on “SmackDown” and seemed to indicate his rematch with Reigns would wait.
The Rock, who recently became a board member of WWE’s parent company TKO, came out to a thunderous applause, and a staredown with Reigns ensued.
But then the internet started revolting against the postponement of Rhodes finishing the story, as fans’ comments on X, Instagram, Reddit and YouTube grew vitriolic about the idea of The Rock taking their protagonist’s slot.
So it was that The Rock appeared on McAfee’s show — McAfee is also a commentator for WWE — and leaned into the heel role.
Pantomiming “grown-ass men” who are whining and typing on their computers, The Rock called these fans “Cody Crybabies” and whined, “Cody can’t finish his story!”
He continued to mock their tones of voices: “The wife comes in and says, ‘Honey do you want to have sex?’ Not now, Cody has to finish his story!”
“At the end of the day you’ve got the Cody Crybabies and then you have the Cody fans and you have Cody himself, and there’s a clear distinction between the three,” he said.
“But The Rock says this: Those Cody Crybabies, the ones for every 10 tweets they’re shoving a Chicken McNugget in their mouth, for every 20 tweets they’re shoving two McNuggets up their ass, The Rock says this: All you gotta do is sit back, know your role, shut your mouth, and enjoy the ride that The Rock is gonna take your candy asses on.”
Meanwhile, Rhodes wrote on Instagram on Thursday that “I’ve made my decision,” and Rhodes, Reigns and The Rock are all a part of WWE’s WrestleMania kickoff press conference airing live from Las Vegas on Peacock at 7 p.m. ET.
