To wrap up a very cordial visit to Raw last night (Jan. 6), TKO Director Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hopped on Instagram Live as he made his way out of Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome.
WWE showed some of the video Johnson shot on the first episode of Raw to stream live on Netflix, but he later uploaded the entire Live in a post. We follow Rock through Gorilla Position as he pays his respects to Paul “Triple H” Levesque and the WWE creative & production team, and to Roman Reigns & others in The Bloodline Saga he’s been a part of since early last year. He chats with WWE President Nick Khan and Khan’s young son, greets Travis Scott and lusts after the chart-topping rapper’s ride, and shares tequila shots (Teremana, natch) with WWE champion Cody Rhodes.
After sharing his thoughts about what pro wrestling on Netflix means — and snapping a selfie with the persistent Fernando — Rocky drives off… but slams on the brakes to check his passenger door, and say, “NXT, tomorrow night at The Shrine. I’ll see you there.”
He confirms that with the “PSS” in the caption, too.
There’s little chance The Great One will start a long-term angle on NXT’s “New Year’s Evil” special tonight, but it will be interesting to see if he interacts with the brand’s General Manager Ava (in case you don’t see the resemblance, Ava is Johnson’s daughter Simone). She accompanied her old man to The Golden Globes on Sunday night.
And what about Rock’s long-term angles on the main roster? There was a lot of speculation that we’d get a better indication of his plans for WrestleMania 41 during his appearance at the Netflix premiere. If what we saw last night was designed to let us know if The People’s Champ will be continuing his issue with Rhodes or officially starting a beef with Reigns, there were no signs of it last night. In fact, his segments — and the above IG Live video — explicitly showed him squashing those beefs, and drawing a line between the person we saw in the Intuit Dome and the “Final Boss” character he played for WrestleMania 40.
In fact, there was more tension between Johnson and his Fast & Furious co-star/nemesis Vin Diesel at The Globes on Sunday than there was between Rock and any WWE wrestlers last night.
Of course, the Rock/Rhodes/Reigns story for last year’s ‘Mania was one of the most meta angles WWE’s ever done. So we wouldn’t be shocked if what we got on Raw’s Netflix premiere was misdirection, or will be retconned to become part of a feud in the future.
But judging by what Johnson did and said last night, we’re looking forward to seeing him at NXT tonight… and while we expect to see him in Las Vegas for WrestleMania this April, at this point we’re betting he won’t be wearing tights and boots when/if he shows up at Allegiant Stadium.