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TJR Blog: WWE 24/7 Champ Rob Gronkowski Returning to the NFL, What It Means for WWE Career and 24/7 Title

By John Canton • Published 22nd April 2020
TJR Wrestling

There was some WWE news in the mainstream sports world yesterday…sort of. That’s because future NFL Hall of Famer Rob Gronkowski came out of retirement and was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from the New England Patriots. The move will reunite Gronk with legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady with that duo combining for three Super Bowl Titles with the New England Patriots and Brady has six titles over his 20-year career.

Gronkowski retired after Super Bowl 53 in early 2019 when the Patriots defeated my Los Angeles Rams (ugh) and Gronk was done with football at just 29 years old. It’s one year later, Gronk has been promoting a CBD product that has helped him heal his body after many back surgeries and now Gronk is back. Gronk had one year left on his contract worth $10 million, so he’s playing at least the 2020 season (assuming the season still happens) and then the future after that is unknown. NFL training camps are supposed to start in late July.

The reason WWE was mentioned in the sports world is because Gronkowski is the current WWE 24/7 Champion after winning the “coveted” title at WrestleMania earlier this month when he pinned his good friend Mojo Rawley.

Here’s what WWE tweeted about the Gronkowski news:

A tweet like that is obviously a bit tongue in cheek because the WWE 24/7 Title is not very coveted and more of a comedy title.

A report from Pro Football Talk today notes that “Gronkowski is done with wrestling for now.”

It was on March 11 when Rob Gronkowski signed with WWE. What we didn’t know at the time is what that meant about future matches. All we really knew is that he would appear on Smackdown on Fox (since Gronkowski worked for Fox NFL last year) and that was the guest host of WrestleMania. The reports at the time stated that “current plans call for that appearance to be part of a build-up to a future match.”

The WWE deal means that if he’s in pro wrestling then he’s going to work for WWE, but since he has decided to go back to the NFL, he is going to focus on his NFL career. My guess is (and this has not been confirmed yet) that there was probably something in his WWE contract that said if he wanted to return to the NFL then he could do so and he would not be in WWE during that period. Ever since Gronkowski retired there were rumors that he was going to come back to the NFL and now that he’s back, his WWE career is on pause.

What about the WWE 24/7 Title?

My interest level in the WWE 24/7 Title is so low that if WWE completely ignored it and it went away forever I would not miss it at all. My guess is that Gronk will appear on an episode of Smackdown in the near future, they will congratulate him on going back to the NFL and then somebody will give him the dreaded ROLLUP OF DEATH~! It will probably be R-Truth or Mojo Rawley that wins the title next.

Could WWE work something out where somebody in WWE rolls up Gronk during halftime of an NFL game to win the title? I guess it’s possible, but I really don’t think this title reign is going to last that long to where Gronk holds it for five months until NFL regular season games start in September. Maybe the Buccaneers allow something in the preseason or training camp, but even then I think somebody else will win the WWE Title before that.

I wish Gronkowski good luck in his NFL career. He will make more money in the NFL at $10 million than he would if he was in WWE this year. He can do wrestling later in his 30s if he wants and WWE knows that. The more high profile Gronk becomes in the NFL, the better it is for WWE long term as well because he’s a big name whether people like him or not. I just hope there’s less dancing in his future because it looked awful when he was on Smackdown the first time.

To sum it all up, I don’t expect Rob Gronkowski to have a match in WWE in 2020 unless it’s just a rollup for the 24/7 Title. When we get to 2021, maybe he’ll be in WWE more regularly, but that’s up to him and if he wants to keep playing football. I think at some point this decade we’ll see Gronk in a WWE a few times per year, but it’s on pause for now.