Following his return to WWE earlier this year, The Rock is currently doing some of his best work in the company.
The former WWE Champion had to change his original plans for the dream match showdown with Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 after fans objected to The Rock replacing Cody Rhodes at the event, resulting in a heel turn, alliance with The Bloodline, and a tag team match in which Rock will team with his cousin to face Rhodes and World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins.
The Rock appeared in the opening segment of Friday’s episode of WWE SmackDown, where he reintroduced his concert segment and appeared to be in trouble with the network’s standards and practices department, which he addressed via Instagram.
For years, The Rock has collaborated with former WWE creative director Brian Gewirtz on WWE promos. Dave Meltzer revealed on Wrestling Observer Radio that Rock’s promos are scripted, with FOX receiving advance notice so they know when to bleep curse words.
“The SmackDown one. I mean, they bleeped a lot of stuff on SmackDown….The deal with the TV, what they have to do is, FOX gets the script ahead of time so they know when to bleep. Because the whole thing, The Rock promo, obviously it’s completely scripted. If it was anyone else, they would just be not allowed to say it, but with The Rock, it’s like, he can say whatever he wants, but they know what he’s gonna say and when he’s gonna say it, so anything they wanna bleep out, they will bleep out. And they know when to bleep it out because they’re told ahead of time. So that’s kind of the gist of the promo and why certain things were bleeped out and everything like that, and they didn’t miss on anything.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
