Can the real Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson please stand up?

Ever since The Rock came back at Elimination Chamber, fans were excited to see what impact he would have on WrestleMania and how this would affect the main event title match. Sadly, after Elimination Chamber, the Final Boss completely disappeared and was barely mentioned in the build to WrestleMania. But we as fans were still expecting him to show up and play some sort of role in Cena’s title win. Again, we were disappointed, as he was nowhere to be seen during Mania weekend — not because he was busy in Hollywood filming a movie or TV show, but because he needed to take a vacation. The guy who was the anchor of the whole storyline decided that he wasn’t needed and stayed home.

After Mania, he decided to go on Pat McAfee’s show and try to defend his absence from WrestleMania — and also threw Triple H under the bus in the process, which didn’t sit well with a lot of fans and wrestling media. But this type of behavior is kind of normal for Dwayne, as he tends to go on the defensive every time somebody criticizes him. I wanted to take a closer look at Dwayne Johnson and some of his previous outbursts.

First, I want to say that while I’m not a big fan of The Rock as a wrestling character, as an actor, I actually like him. He’s not the greatest actor in the world and seems to coast on his reputation to keep his career going, but when given the right movie, he’s still able to attract people to theaters — which is rare for an actor these days. He also seems like a really great guy in real life. But when he’s criticized for anything, his inner Dr. Hyde comes out, and he goes full Hulk Hogan on those criticizing him.

The first instance I saw this happen was after the disappointing box office for Black Adam, which led to WB canceling the old DCEU and rethinking their plans for the DC Universe. Rock didn’t like that, and he went on the offensive on social media — spreading lies about how much money the movie actually made, blaming the studio for the disappointing box office, and acting like he was the greatest actor in the world. The Hollywood trades had a field day with it, to the point that he finally decided to stop defending himself before he hurt his career even more.

We also can’t forget the feud he had with Vin Diesel for almost a decade, which led the producers of the Fast & Furious franchise to actually do a spin-off movie just to keep his character alive in case they needed him back. He and Vin were eventually able to squash whatever beef they had, and it seems like they did, as Rock will be in the final Fast movie.

Then let’s look at last year’s Mania. The plan was Rock vs. Reigns, but fans didn’t want that — they wanted Cody to finish his story. That didn’t please Rock, as it went against his plans for WrestleMania, and he started to complain about it in the media. After a while, he realized he could turn this into a storyline and make himself look good in the process — and we got one of the greatest pivots in WWE history. This wasn’t the original plan, and don’t be fooled by what you read. Rock wasn’t happy about switching his plan; he just did it to make himself look good and get fans off his back.

So, he has a tendency to become a completely different guy when his career and reputation are under attack, and sadly, it kind of makes him look worse in the process.

In the end, we as fans are very forgiving. While we knew about all the crap that was happening with Vince, we still gave him a standing ovation when he came out, and we will do the same thing when Rock finally decides to come back — because that’s the type of fans we are. Rock might be an egomaniac as far as his professional life is concerned, but we’re still going to forgive him and move on.

The guy put himself as the principal character in the Cena vs. Cody match at Mania, then decided he wasn’t needed — when, in reality, he was the whole reason Cena turned in the first place. Unless he’s able to spin this and make something great out of the mess he started, I doubt that I will ever look at The Rock the same way again.