The Rock was handsomely compensated for services rendered at WrestleMania

A Tues., April 9 filing with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission revealed that after WrestleMania XL Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson now owns an additional 97,000 shares of WWE’s parent company TKO Group. At its current market price, that stock is worth more than $9 million. With it, Johnson now holds 193,116 TKO shares.

The announcement was required because, as Johnson’s character reminds us whenever he’s on WWE television (and as Johnson reminds us in most out-of-character interviews he does), he holds a seat on the TKO Board of Directors. The reason Johnson was awarded these shares on April 7 stems from his agreement to join the Board back in January.

As yesterday’s filing explains:

The Issuer previously granted the Reporting Person an award of 96,558 restricted stock units that vested upon completion of certain services described in that Independent Contractor Services and Merchandising Agreement, dated as of January 22, 2024, between the Reporting Person and World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC.

Which tells this was part of Johnson’s overall deal for his Board seat, but this particular piece of his compensation package was contingent upon his completing “certain services” as an “independent contractor”. Given the timing of when this batch of shares vested, it seems logical to assume those services included wrestling on Night One of WrestleMania XL and taking part in the Night Two main event.

Johnson will be focusing on filming his Mark Kerr biopic Smashing Machine for A24 in the coming months, and is committed to a live action adaptation of Moana for Disney that now has a 2026 release date. But he teased a match with Cody Rhodes on April 8’s Raw After WrestleMania. It’s not clear he’ll get a larger stake in TKO should that happen at, say, WrestleMania 41... but if he does, we won’t be surprised.