The Rock Cut A Vintage Promo On ‘Cody Crybabies’ Amid WrestleMania Backlash

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be facing Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia, but there are an awful lot of WWE fans who are not excited for the return of The Great One. That’s because many believe The Rock is taking an opportunity away from Cody Rhodes, who ceded his chance to exact revenge on Reigns for last year’s Mania loss and “finish the story” of winning the title he so greatly covets.

There are reports and rumors abound about what exactly is going on behind the scenes at WWE, but many of them point to Rhodes going into the Royal Rumble believing he’d get his shot at Reigns, only for plans to change dramatically once The Rock signed on and CM Punk got hurt — ending his chance to go after Seth Rollins. This week on Raw, Rollins and Rhodes met face-to-face in the ring while “Rocky Sucks” chants cascaded down, prompting Cody to tweet this to the very vocal fans believing he’s getting screwed out of his Mania moment.

On Thursday evening in Las Vegas, taking advantage of the mass of media on hand for Super Bowl week, Reigns, Rhodes, Rollins, and The Rock will all take the stage for a press event to hype up WrestleMania 40. Prior to that, The Rock stopped by The Pat McAfee Show and decided to warm things up by cutting a vintage heel Rock promo on the “Cody Crybabies” online.

If he’s letting this one rip on TV before the event, you can bet he’s got more planned for Thursday night. I must say, hearing The Rock talk in the third person, tell people to shut their “bitch asses up”, and make a joke about them shoving McNuggets up their asses after firing off tweets is oddly comforting.

It’s also funny watching him flip the kayfabe switch in realtime, toggling between making sure to be careful he explains he’s talking only of a subset of Cody’s fans and not most fans and not Cody himself, then cutting the promo, and then laughing about how fun it is to get back in that world.