With Hollywood on strike, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was able to make his surprise WWE return during an episode of SmackDown earlier this year alongside Pat McAfee. The Brahma Bull clashed with Austin Theory and Grayson Waller, and later revealed that he very nearly headlined this year's WrestleMania with Roman Reigns.
Johnson explained that it wasn't the right time for the match and speculation started running rampant that he might challenge the Head of the Table at next year's Showcase of the Immortals instead, news which frustrated fans hopping to see Cody Rhodes end his story by beating the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion.
In an Instagram post share over the holidays, The Rock reflected on fulfilling a recent Make-A-Wish Foundation wish and teased, "I told him a little secret that may or may not involve some dude returning to WWE to lay the SmackDown on all their candy asses."
Since then, we've learned that the Australian Tourist Board is pushing hard for Johnson to appear at the Elimination Chamber PLE in Perth next February.
According to The West Australian, the country is hoping to entice The Rock there as it would bring even more eyes to what promises to be a huge show. WWE could also take the opportunity to set the stage for The Rock vs. Reigns at WrestleMania, though there's another possibility, of course.
After recently clashing with Waller, an Australian native, doing something with The Rock, him, and Theory could lead to a fun segment which makes plenty of headlines. After all, those Hollywood strikes are over and Johnson will soon be busy with his pre-existing acting commitments.
Plus, if The Rock replaced Rhodes at the Showcase of the Immortals, there's likely to be a fair bit of backlash from fans.
"The Rock headlining WrestleMania with Roman Reigns, SoFi Stadium, that was locked," Johnson said earlier this year. "We were doing it...So then we had a year to really think about this. So the north star thought was, 'Okay, let's not do something good. Let's not do something great. Let's do something unprecedented.' It was in, what can we create for the fans that has never been done before."
"A match, great. Roman, incredible athlete. He's gonna be on Mount Rushmore. Super handsome, good dude, my cousin, family. Amazing. We can have the match, but the bigger thought was, what can do for the fans and the business that love, where WrestleMania isn't the end of something, it's actually the beginning of something bigger."
"So we got really, really close, but we couldn't actually nail what that thing was," he added. "So we decided to put our pencils down. We agreed, 'Hey, listen, there's a merger coming up, eventually that will happen. There's WrestleMania in Philadelphia.' [eyebrow raise] I'm saying that's a potential too. I'm open [to it]. I'm open."
You can check out The Rock's WWE tease in the Instagram post below.