The trend continues with The Rock making surprise WWE appearances, with his most recent showings being on SmackDown and Raw.
Recent appearances
The Rock made a surprise return to WWE in mid-September on SmackDown, where The Rock interrupted a segment with Pat McAfee and Austin Theory. He did a promo before laying out Theory with the People’s Elbow.
This past Monday’s Raw, Rock interrupted Jinder Mahal, where they exchanged words, and he laid out the fellow former WWE Champion. Rock got people talking by making a Head of the Table reference, teasing a potential Roman Reigns match.
Both appearances drew big numbers on both social media and TV ratings. However, many people feel those appearances should’ve been announced in advance to further pop a bigger rating.
The reason
While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer explained that the reason his appearances are not announced in advance is because Rock doesn’t care about ratings but rather the pop that he gets from the crowd in attendance. Although Rock is a businessman, coming back to do things with WWE is more fun than business-driven for him.
“But also, he’s doing this for fun because he doesn’t have to do it. And he’s doing it for excitement. That type of thing. That’s why when he came back Monday, it wasn’t announced at a time like if they had announced that ahead of time. I mean, the rating would have been much higher, much higher than it was. He was doing it because in that case, he wanted that pop because of people in the building not knowing he was going to be there. And there he is. That’s what he wants. Every time he comes back, they never announce it ahead of time. They’ll do the little tease, but they won’t do so, but they won’t do the announcement,” Meltzer stated.
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