The Rock is not a heel in WWE despite slapping Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania XL Kickoff, former GM believes
The Rock's actions at the WrestleMania XL Kickoff event led many to speculate that the WWE icon will perform as a bad guy moving forward. However, former WWE on-screen General Manager Eric Bischoff does not believe that will be the case.
In a chaotic on-stage segment in Las Vegas, Cody Rhodes chose Roman Reigns as his WrestleMania XL opponent. The two-time Royal Rumble winner also criticized Reigns and The Rock, claiming their grandfathers would be ashamed of them. The Great One reacted by slapping Rhodes, seemingly aligning with Reigns in the process.
On his 83 Weeks YouTube channel, Bischoff addressed whether he thinks the Hollywood star officially turned heel:
"Nope. I think this is a step. This is one page of the first chapter in Rock's story in WWE. It's act one. It's the beginning. It's the opening chapter. It's the first chapter." [10:00 – 10:15]
Shortly before the Las Vegas event, The Rock confirmed on The Pat McAfee Show that he will return to the ring at WrestleMania XL. The 51-year-old was expected to face Reigns at WWE's biggest show of the year, but that match now looks unlikely to happen in the near future.
Eric Bischoff makes a prediction about The Rock's WWE appearances
Although he recently became a board member of WWE's parent company TKO, The Rock is likely to only appear on television as a part-time character.
WrestleMania XL will take place at Lincoln Financial Field on April 6-7 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between now and then, Eric Bischoff expects to see more on-screen appearances from The Brahma Bull:
"Four [more appearances]," Bischoff predicted. "Sixteen episodes of television, that's like two seasons of any other scripted show. You got plenty of runway to tell a lot of great story in a very short period of time." [26:07 – 26:28]
The movie star has not portrayed a bad guy on WWE programming since 2003. At the time, he received the nickname Hollywood Rock and acted like he was better than other wrestlers due to his box-office success.
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Please credit 83 Weeks and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.