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ESPN published a long article this morning about The Rock's return to the ring with quotes from Johnson, his long-time associate Bryan Gewirtz, WWE President Nick Khan and more at this link.
The article noted:
"WWE shipped two rings to Los Angeles and worked with Johnson's team to rent warehouses as training facilities. One ring was set up in Los Angeles, where Johnson resides. There, he simulated matches alongside NXT's Gallus -- the Scottish trio that consists of Wolfgang along with real-life brothers Mark and Joe Coffey.
Since Johnson is competing in a tag-team match, he needed three wrestlers to push through in-ring sequences and hone his timing. Michael "P.S." Hayes, a WWE Hall of Famer as part of the Freebirds and a longtime match producer for WWE, supervised those training sessions along with Bobby Roode, a former NXT, U.S., and WWE tag-team champion who's now working as a producer. Veteran referee Chad Patton officiated those sessions while WWE medical oversaw the rehearsals to make sure it was run safely.
The other ring? It was placed in a shipping container and sent off to Hawaii, where Johnson has a family home. The training ring's journey there took about one week. The total cost: tens of thousands of dollars. In Hawaii, The Rock trained alone."
On the training, Johnson commented, ""Suplexes, a launch off the top rope, a catch, like bodies hitting bodies, It's things like that that you have to do and have to prepare for. And you're getting bruised up, you're hitting the ropes. It comes back fairly quick. ... It's like riding a bike."
"Fortunately for me, very lucky in that I became somewhat of a ring general where I see the circumference of the ring and where I need to be usually timing wise," Johnson said. "Because timing is really important in our business of wrestling. So, just putting in the work, training, the diet begins, which always sucks. And taking the falls and just getting my ass kicked every day. So, we'll see how it goes."
It was noted that initially, things were cued up for Johnson to return as part of the Hollywood-themed Wrestlemania 39 but he could never "figure out the why" the return should happen, so the show came and went without him.
"Ultimately, Dwayne would say one of his greatest loves was WWE," WWE President Nick Khan said. "But Dwayne needed to figure out the 'Why?' Beyond his love of wrestling or to try to prove that he was the real Head of the Table. So, it didn't happen.... Dwayne went about with his empire-building career, and then we re-engaged in late 2022."
When Khan approached him about taking a seat on the WWE Board, the "why" began to materialize.
Johnson and Khan go back many, many years.
"My grandmother was promoting wrestling shows in Hawaii, Lia Maivia, in 1983, '84," said Johnson "Nick and his sister Nahnatchka [the creator and executive producer of the 'Young Rock' TV show], were all running around together in that arena (in Honolulu) back then 'cause they were living in Hawaii, too. So our relationship goes way back."
"Nick's an excellent leader, astute businessman and sharp dealmaker," Johnson said, "because he's an innovative collaborator, big-picture thinker, and has the capacity to recognize epic, disruptive opportunities for brand-building."
"That relationship that I have with Nick has certainly helped propel a lot of this forward," Johnson said. "Even though things didn't work out philosophically for us to get the deal done for WrestleMania 39 at SoFi Stadium, that allowed this incredible opportunity for Cody Rhodes to come in. And as we are feeling and sensing and hearing from his passionate fans ... what an incredible opportunity for him."
The article then dovetailed into the audience rejecting the idea of the audience rejecting Roman Reigns vs. The Rock in favor of Cody Rhodes finishing his story.
"[Cody's] gotta tell his story," said Johnson. "So here we are in WrestleMania 40.... What can we deliver for them? How can it be unique? How could it be different? And how could we still put on the biggest WrestleMania of all time?"
Whether Rhodes doe or not, The Rock will still be around after Mania 40 is in the books and streaming forever online.
"I'm not off the board after WrestleMania," Johnson commented. "I'm still on the board, and I will always be a part of this. And we are in it now. This is our thing and will forever be our thing."
Bryan Gewirtz noted, "...I do think there's gonna be a Rock presence in WWE going forward until whenever he doesn't want to...I could definitely say that this isn't [over a] day after WrestleMania and I'm gonna go off into the sunset now."
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