Backstage Reaction to The Rock’s Comments on The Pat McAfee Show & Instagram Post About Issues Over His Lack of Involvement for WrestleMania 41

This past Sunday’s WWE WrestleMania 41 Night 2 event featured John Cena defeating Cody Rhodes to become the new Undisputed WWE Champion. This match was notable for the very negative online reactions over issues with the booking of the match and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s abscense from it. Johnson responded to these issues in an interview with The Pat McAfee Show explaining his reasons for his abscense from both the match and the build. Johnson also recently responded to a rant from Dave LeGreca blaming him for why the match turned out badly and his claims for why he was absent.

Fightful Select reported that his sources stated that The Rock’s recent remarks was something that had quickly circulated among WWE’s talent and backstage staff. One talent spoken to reportedly stated that while The Rock was silent leading into WrestleMania, he had no issue going on a podcast afterwards to talk about being asked to help drive ticket sales and give some of his grievances with the event.

It was reported that one source spoken to confirmed that The Rock was contacted to help boost ticket sales for this past March’s Elimination Chamber 2025, which was considered as a significant win internally. This same source reportedly also stated that prior to it, WWE creative teams had been told to plan under the assumption that The Rock would not be involved in WrestleMania 41. It was reported that some within WWE’s creative had believed that might change following Elimination Chamber but they were still advised not to build any major storylines around him.

One veteran talent spoken to reportedly stated that while the roster is always happy to have The Rock around, there has been a long-standing sentiment that “the card is at the mercy of Dwayne.” It was reported that this dynamic creates a bit of a push-pull for The Rock, due to he may be hesitant to interfere with creative plans like he did previously and underestimating how central he is to the overall narrative.

Several talents spoken to reportedly stated that the online rumors and speculation about a possible backstage tension between The Rock and WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque is something that if it exists, then it has not made its way down to the locker room. It was reported that whole there have been rumors of a respectful but occasionally strained rivalry between the two, there has not been any indication that it is currently affecting internal operations in WWE.

It was reported that the general feeling backstage was one not of anger but more of confusion over The Rock’s approach for this year’s WrestleMania 41. One talent spoken to reportedly stated that they believe it might be an “overcorrection” based on how things were handled for last year’s WrestleMania 40. This same talent reportedly stated that the context this time around was completely different for The Rock.

Several talent spoken to reportedly stated that they felt it was unusual that The Rock did not even acknowledge nor promote this year’s WrestleMania event. One source spoken to reportedly stated “It was just weird. We all found it kind of odd that he didn’t say a word about the show.”

In regards to The Rock’s response on Instagram to LaGreca’s viral rant, one talent spoken to reportedly questioned what exactly he meant by it. This same talent reportedly stated “Is he saying it’s all a work? Like, every time he talks to us backstage, he’s in character too? Was the McAfee interview a work even though he said it wasn’t?”