See the pain in the eyes of Cody Rhodes.. What happened after SmackDown goes off-air, Rock said:

The Rock returned to WWE SmackDown one month and two days after teasing a match against Roman Reigns and seemingly confirmed the WrestleMania 40 clash. The brief staredown lasted two minutes, but The Great One had a message for the fans after the show went off the air.

This week on the blue brand, the main event segment saw Cody Rhodes shockingly give up his WrestleMania 40 spot against Roman Reigns by clearly stating that while he intended to target The Tribal Chief, it won’t be at WrestleMania 40. Instead, he brought out The Rock to seemingly set up the real main event of The Show of Shows.

After the two-minute staredown, WWE SmackDown went off the air. Once the cameras stopped rolling, The Rock sent a heartfelt message to the crowd in Birmingham, Alabama.

“This is a city deep in history. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I’m happy to tell you that tonight, all of us made history here in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham, I thank you, I love you.”


Despite criticism of the handling of this situation, it can’t be denied that the crowd in Birmingham was hot for what was otherwise a great episode.

The response to The Rock’s return hasn’t been all positive

While the live crowd certainly loved the fact that The Brahma Bull returned to seemingly set up a WrestleMania match against Roman Reigns, the responses online haven’t been as flattering.

It understandably makes very little sense for Cody Rhodes to simply give up his guaranteed spot in the main event of WrestleMania, and it also made many believe that Cody should, in fact, have won last year at WrestleMania 39.

It was a big wrench thrown into Cody’s story, and the entire run he had from post-WrestleMania 39 last year up until now seems to have gone to waste, considering that he specifically avoided World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins in order to target the WWE Championship which is now known as the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship.