Dwayne Johnson speaks at the WrestleMania XXVII press conference. (Getty)
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one of the most popular and charismatic professional wrestlers of all time, and even though he no longest wrestles, he likes to appear at WrestleMania when he can. So is The Rock expected to be at WrestleMania 33?
While nothing has been announced, it seems likely that The Rock will indeed make an appearance at WrestleMania tonight.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter recently reported that The Rock is in Orlando, Florida this weekend, and he will be there until Tuesday or Wednesday. His show Ballers also is not filming on Sunday, meaning he will likely be free on Sunday night.
“It’s shooting almost every other day, but they are not shooting on Sunday,” Meltzer said, according to Inquisitr. “He said if he could be there, he’d be there. He likes coming every year. I don’t know if he’s there, I’m just saying that his mom has been in town for a couple days.”
We probably shouldn’t expect anything major from The Rock, and we certainly shouldn’t expect him to wrestle. We’ll likely get something akin to The Rock’s appearance at WrestleMania 32, when he showed up, used a flamethrower to set a giant The Rock sign aflame, and then beat Erick Rowan in six seconds.
Not everyone was a fan of The Rock’s appearance at WrestleMania 32, however. Stone Cold Steve Austin later criticized it, saying that The Rock overstayed his welcome.
“[Y]ou could feel the energy just draining out of 100,000 people,” Austin said, according to Wrestling Inc. “Now, The Rock is probably my most favorite opponent of all time. We had some epic feuds and epic battles, angles, and he’s a very dear friend. I got to call him out on that. Rock, you sucked all the energy out of that building. And he’s the most electrifying guy in sports entertainment and he’s the biggest movie star in the world right now, but that one time Rock, you didn’t know when to go home when you should have.”
The Rock was actually at a WWE show only a few weeks ago; he showed up at Monday Night Raw on February 20th, although he only appeared in the ring after the cameras stopped rolling, and he was there because he was filming a movie.
Unfortunately, it does not appear at this time that Stone Cold Steve Austin will be at WrestleMania 33.