The Rock “Blown Away” By Crowd Reaction On WWE SmackDown
Following his surprising appearance on WWE SmackDown, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson feels like it was one of the loudest crowd reactions of his entire career.
The Rock’s WWE career goes back 27 years to Survivor Series 1996 when he was a 24-year-old rookie just trying to find his way in the pro wrestling world. Two years later he was WWE Champion for the first time and less than three years later he was headlining his first WrestleMania (15 in 1999) with Steve Austin.
These days, The Rock is one of the most well-known celebrities in the world thanks to a 20+ year acting career. On top of that, he’s a man that’s married with three daughters and has several successful businesses as well. He is also very good at using social media to promote things he believes in and give fans a glimpse into his life.
This past Friday on WWE Smackdown in Denver, The Rock made a surprise appearance because was in Boulder, Colorado earlier in the day with Pat McAfee, who also was in Boulder for his ESPN/YouTube show. They were in Boulder to check out the Colorado Buffaloes college football team, who won a thrilling overtime game on Saturday night.
Since The Rock and McAfee were close by, they decided to make it known to WWE’s key people and that led to an unannounced appearance in front of a Denver crowd that was absolutely thrilled to see McAfee and blew the roof off the place (figuratively speaking) when The Rock arrived.
There were words exchanged between McAfee and former US Champion Austin Theory, which led to The Rock making his appearance to a thunderous ovation. After some classic Rock-isms on the microphone, Theory tried to attack, but Rock was ready for it and kicked his ass with a spinebuster as well as a People’s Elbow. McAfee delivered his own People’s Elbow as well.
The Rock calls Smackdown appearance one of the “loudest crowd reactions of my entire career”
On Instagram and his other social media accounts, The Rock said that the crowd reaction is on his personal Mount Rushmore of crowd reactions in his career, which means it’s one of the four loudest ovations he has ever heard.
I’m still 💯 completely blown away by this crowd reaction in Denver this past Friday night on SMACKDOWN.
My appearance was a surprise and this crowd of 14,000 erupted and blew the roof off the arena with the roaring energy of 100,000 strong!!!
This Denver crowd officially made my MOUNT RUSHMORE of loudest crowd reactions of my entire career ⛰️🤯🥹🙏🏾
Coming back home to @WWE will always be sacred to me and I’ll never ever take this crowd connection for granted.
Thank you my guy @patmcafeeshow and the talented @austin_theory for the dance.
WWE family backstage, Team Rock behind the scenes – everyone who joins us whenever we go ALL IN.But most importantly, thank you with all my love, gratitude and respect, to THE PEOPLE.
Our connection is real.
Our mana is powerful.
Electrifying.~ the people’s champ ✊🏾
In addition to that in-ring moment, The Rock and his former two-time WrestleMania opponent John Cena had a backstage meeting as well with Cena saying “welcome home” to The Rock, who said it was good to be here.