Heading into last night's episode of RAW, we knew that a former WWE Champion was set to appear. Speculation ranged from Andrade (who recently left AEW) to Big E and even MJF; instead, it was...Jinder Mahal?!
When he was introduced, the energy was sucked out of the San Diego crowd and this sort of misleading bait and switch to boost ratings became commonplace during Vince McMahon's time in charge. We'd expected better from Triple H, of course, and he thankfully delivered!
After Mahal spent a good few minutes tearing into America and the fans in attendance, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's music hit and the place went bananas.
He proceeded to mock the heel, pulling out many of his greatest hits in the process. Eventually, the Brahma Bull laid out Mahal with a spinebuster and finished by hitting the former WWE Champion with his patented People's Elbow.
The Rock went on to thank the fans and mentioned he planned to leave and get something to eat. He asked the crowd whether he should sit in a booth, at the bar, or perhaps...at the head of the table.
This was clearly meant to tease a clash with his cousin, Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns. When and where that will happen is unclear, though fans have made it clear they don't want to see The Rock replace Cody Rhodes in his potential rematch with the Tribal Chief at WrestleMania. Elimination Chamber is one possibility for this long-awaited bout, especially as it will take place in a WrestleMania-sized stadium in Australia.
"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."
Check out some highlights from RAW, along with Reigns' response to The Rock, below.