Why did Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson return to the ring for WrestleMania 40?

After starring in movies like Jumanji, Moana and Hobbs & Shaw, Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson returned to his wrestling roots this past weekend for WrestleMania 40.

Today on Commotion, wrestling fans Damian Abraham (of the band F--ked Up) and culture critic Pablo, The Don join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss how The Rock's return was received and other highlights from the big anniversary celebration.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: Damian, the main headline leading up to WrestleMania 40 was that this is the return of The Rock, a.k.a. the return of Dwayne Johnson. How big of a deal is it to have The Rock back at this particular WrestleMania, do you think?

Damian: Oh, it's absolutely huge. You know, with all what you mentioned before — the TKO merger, the Vince McMahon sexual harassment lawsuit obviously being the most salient of all of them — there was a lot riding on this one. There were some real stakes to this one, and The Rock is the biggest card they could play. They threw everything. The Undertaker came back, John Cena came back. Paul Levesque [the retired wrestler better known as Triple H who now serves as head of creative for WWE] wanted to cement his era, and they hope that we are not talking about all the stuff that came before right now.

Elamin: In the lead up to [WrestleMania 40] there was this big heel turn from The Rock, which is basically what happens when you take a guy who everyone knows as a good guy, and you turn him bad. You have to land that convincingly in order for people to go, "Yes, I believe that I should be rooting against one of the most popular movie stars on the planet." So how believable was The Rock's turn as a villain to you, Pablo?

Pablo: I mean, for me, it was absolutely believable. I don't think people think about the things that he's been going through in the public so long … Black Adam was a failure, OK?

Elamin: Black Adam was a massive flop as a movie, yes.

Pablo: And he forced his way into it. The things that happened in Hawaii, with him asking people for money as he is the highest paid actor in the entire world — people were not receptive to that. I fully believe he came back with the intention to be a good guy, to rehab his image, but there was just a better good guy there and his name was Cody Rhodes. So the only thing you could do is make him Hollywood Rock again, which is so many people's childhood — that '03 era when he first goes off to do The Scorpion King.

Elamin: The Scorpion King! I remember that, yes.

Pablo: And so he comes back, he's singing, he's got the cut-off Versace shirts and all that stuff. It was the only way to play this, and I think it was so convincing. I think it gives a new character to who Dwayne even is, because him just coming back as the good guy constantly was more in line with his image as the Teremana [tequila] CEO or ZOA [the Rock's line of energy drinks], but him coming back and being this bad guy while also doing Papatui [his skincare brand] and all this other stuff, it gives him a new wrinkle — and we haven't seen a new wrinkle with Dwayne since Ballers, pretty much. So people are seeing he's a bad guy on this show. He also may not be the best guy in real life too, but he's blurring the lines.

Elamin: He's leaning into it.

Damian: And last time he came back, he was booed when he was in the ring with Roman. Wrestling fans are really ready to boo The Rock, and The Rock is amazing at playing them like a fiddle and getting fans to boo when he wants them to boo. And I'm sure he could get everyone to cheer if he wanted.

Pablo: Absolutely.

Elamin: There's something about the fact that this is his first return. It's one thing to sort of be back in the ring and do the trash talk thing — everybody loves that. But he's back in the ring for the first time in eight years. This is the dude who's going to be 52 next month. Damian, how did he look in the ring?

Damian: Oh, he looked amazing. He can still go. It was a tag team match, so he was protected to a certain extent, but at the same time, he's amazing. But that's the thing about wrestling. If you look at wrestling all over the world, there are wrestlers that are able to wrestle well past any other sport would allow them to because there's smoke and mirrors involved. There's stuff that can be done. And that's not to diminish what The Rock did in the ring, because The Rock looked amazing and he's getting up at, what, 4 a.m. to work out every day? Like this guy is constantly ring-ready, right?

Pablo: Yeah, he looked great. He really did. I didn't expect him to look as good, I think, coming off of the last time he wrestled, where he tore his entire adductor muscle. I was worried; you are 52, yes. Also, he's jacked to the gods, but I noticed he dropped some muscle mass just to get back in the ring and be in ring shape. So I'm very excited that this was good.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.