When you’re Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and fate hands you a chance to just pop in and send the fans on a random episode of WWE SmackDown into a frenzy, why wouldn’t you do it? And if you call the president of WWE and tell them your idea, are they really going to say no?
Probably not. And as Johnson tells it, that’s essentially how his appearance on the Sept. 15 episode of SmackDown came together. The Rock was in the right place at the right time — in this case, Boulder, Colo. for an episode of “College GameDay” on ESPN.
He discovered SmackDown was slated for somewhere nearby, and as he explained this week on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” it wasn’t that hard to make it happen after that (h/t Fightful for the transcription).
So here’s the crazy thing about that is we were in Boulder. I was there for College GameDay. And I found out the night before that WWE SmackDown was going to be in Denver, which is right up the road. So I call my buddies at WWE, Nick Khan, and I said, ‘Hey man, I heard SmackDown is here. Can you confirm that?’ He said, ‘It is.’ I said, ‘Well good, The Rock is coming to SmackDown.’
That part was easy. The difficult part, Johnson said, was keeping it a secret, but everyone involved managed to pull that off too.
So my music hit, ‘If you smell.’ And I went out there. They had no idea. And you guys know how hard it is to keep a secret. It doesn’t exist. This was a full-on secret. The people went nuts, 13,000 people sounded like 130,000 people. And it was just incredible. So WWE audience, it’s my family, I love them, and it was incredible.
One person who may not have found it so incredible was Austin Theory, who was the target of some of The Rock’s trademark verbal jabs before taking not one, but two doses of The People’s Elbow (one each from The Rock and Pat McAfee). On the other hand, appearing in any segment with Johnson is good for one’s career, so he’ll probably take it.
And who knows? The Rock certainly hasn’t closed the door on an appearance at WrestleMania 40 in a few months, even if the end of the actors strike in Hollywood makes that slightly less likely now.
We’re guessing if he decides to show up in Philly, though, it may involve more than just a last second phone call.