Paul "Triple H" Levesque had a great time working with his old in-ring rival The Rock on the creative side of WrestleMania 40.
At WrestleMania, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returned to the ring for his first real match in more than a decade. He teamed with Roman Reigns to defeat Cody Rhodes & Seth Rollins at night one of the show. Night two then saw Rock get involved in the Reigns vs. Rhodes main event for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.
Levesque, WWE's Chief Content Officer, spoke at the World Congress of Sports convention on Wednesday. During the appearance, he praised The Rock for how invested he was in making WrestleMania 40 an amazing ride for the fans:
I can only imagine what's next for The Rock. He's got his hands in just about everything. We were thrilled to have Rock being involved. When you can have the biggest star on the globe, arguably, want to be a part of what we do, and in a meaningful way, and want to do it in a way where he's not just like, 'Yeah, yeah, I'll come in, tell me what to do, I'll go do this.' Like, all of his resources, all of his brain power, all of his creative, all of those things, his branding, everything. 'I want to invest in this and make it this amazing ride for our fans.' It doesn't get any better than that. So his coming in, just across the board, if you would have told me in the beginning of the conversations we were going to get the 'Final Boss' heel version of The Rock, I would have said you're crazy. But that's his level of commitment.
He goes off, makes a few movies now, but as he said a week ago, he'll be back. And it'll be a hell of a ride when he comes back.
While The Rock may have other pursuits, Levesque believes pro wrestling is in his DNA. Levesque said it was a blast to work behind the scenes with Rock on WrestleMania:
[Rock] does this thing where he comes out where he gets goosebumps and he hits his arms to show the camera the goosebumps on him. And he and I have joked about that for years. There is nothing else - like, he doesn't finish a scene making a film and get goosebumps all over him. He doesn't watch the movie when it comes out and get goosebumps all over him, I'd highly doubt it.
When you're standing in a ring at WrestleMania, 75,000+ fans going absolutely insane, you get goosebumps all over you. And it's the adrenaline rush, it is in his DNA, it's who he is as a human being. He just absolutely loves it. And you can see it in his passion for it. He might be going in a million different directions, but the second he steps into our world, he's all in on us. And it's been - I was fortunate enough to work with him all through the 90s, the 2000s, everything. It was a blast to get back together and creatively to do this together. I had a great time,
WWE has set up a future Rhodes vs. The Rock match for whenever Rock does make his return. Rock pinned Rhodes in their tag match at night one of WrestleMania. Rhodes then became Undisputed WWE Universal Champion by defeating Reigns the next night.
This January, Rock was named to the Board of Directors of TKO Group Holdings (the parent company of WWE and the UFC).
More must-reads: