Rob Gronkowski played a starring role at WrestleMania 36 before coming out of football retirement to reunite with Tom Brady on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, even securing the WWE’s 24/7 title belt in the process.
It turns out that the stunt that ultimately led to him being crowned 24/7 champion caused Gronkowski to feel a tremendous amount of trepidation. Footage of Gronkowski plummeting from a tower down onto a pack of brawling wrestlers arguably makes his concern at least understandable.
Gronkowski obviously overcame his fears and performed the stunt, though one “WWE name” indicated to Fightful afterward that he was “terrified” over it.
Ahead of the event, WWE boss Vince McMahon attempted to assuage any apprehension a “nervous” Gronk harbored over performing the stunt. How so? At 74 years old, McMahon did it himself.
In order to show him that the spot was safe, Vince McMahon actually did the dive himself. The story was verified by a half dozen people within WWE, as well as some that have since left.
One person in the building said those there caught it and had a reaction of “did that just happen?,” and that Vince McMahon said something to the nature of “not so bad, is it?”
It’s incredibly impressive that McMahon had the guts to do the stunt at his age to show Gronkowski doing so was safe, relatively speaking. Despite McMahon’s assurances, Gronk apparently wasn’t completely convinced.
This led to the stunt being filmed from a low angle in order to better portray the scene, as Gronkowski ended up just crouching down and falling off the platform in a move that one person unflatteringly compared to “a toddler jumping into the pool for the first time.”
In the end, everything went off without a hitch, but the backstory behind the stunt certainly is enlightening, not to mention arguably a little embarrassing for Gronkowski.
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