"I was watching Jalen Hurts lose in the playoffs again": Eagles QB trolled by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson at WWE event
Dwayne Johnson was a football player before becoming "The Rock", one of the biggest stars in wrestling. And he gave a reminder of how he still knows the events in the gridiron in his latest heel promo.
On Thursday, the former WWE Champion showed up two hours late for WWE World, a fan event at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. As the fans booed, he "explained" why:
"[The Rock] was watching YouTube, watching Jalen Hurts lose in the playoffs again. You boo because it's the truth."
For context, he was referencing Jalen Hurts and his Philadelphia Eagles' 32-9 loss at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2023-24 Wild Card Round. This result was a steep decline from their Super Bowl LVII appearance at the end of the 2022-23 season.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson reacts to Larry David's suggestion to remove kickers from UFL
When Dwayne Johnson is not delivering in-ring trash talk as "The Rock", he is busy managing the United Football League (UFL), the spring gridiron league that emanated from his XFL's New Year's Eve merger with the USFL.
This newly-inaugurated competition incorporates elements from both of its predecessor. This most notably includes the former's elimination of kicks as PATs in favor of scrimmage plays whose values differ depending on where they begin (one point from two yards, two from five, and three from ten).
But according to comedian Larry David, he had pitched something even more radical: eliminate goalpasts (and by extension, kicking) completely, an idea that he unsuccessfully tried to get the NFL to adopt once. He said on Rich Eisen's eponymous show two weeks ago:
"You know how I feel about the goalposts. And I heard about this UFL. And I thought, let me let me talk to somebody, because it's insane. So my agent got me on the phone with Dwayne Johnson... We had a conversation; I pitched him the 'no goalpost' idea. He was completely into it.
Johnson, however, revealed that he rejected David's pitch on Wednesday's episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon:
"First of all, Larry's f---ing crazy... He goes, 'Y-You're going to launch the new league, right? ... What can we do about the kickers? Do we need the kickers?' We had this spirited conversation. We need the kickers, by the way, because kickers are an amazing component of football."
The UFL enters its second week of play this Saturday. All four games that weekend, except the Sunday afternoon tussle between the Houston Roughnecks and DC Defenders (Fox) will air on ESPN/ABC.