The Rock Returns For WWE Royal Rumble Tonight?

By John Canton / January 25, 2015

http://instagram.com/p/yQ1ZmJoh3G/?modal=true The internet wrestling community is buzzing because The Rock posted a photo late on Saturday night on Instagram and Twitter saying he was in Philadelphia. What's the significance of that? The 2015 Royal Rumble takes place in Philadelphia. The Rock's message is as follows: "In town and always gotta stop by the neighborhood... #SouthPhilly" In addition to that, a report from PWInsider.com notes that The Rock " was seen at the WWE worker hotel this evening", meaning Saturday. In other words, he's there for the Royal Rumble and was likely brought in by WWE for whatever plan they have for him. What could that plan be? It's probably that much talked about match with Brock Lesnar that has been rumored for a few years now. The two are friends and also had a big match at SummerSlam 2002 when The Rock passed the torch by losing the WWE Title to Lesnar when he was a 25 year old "rookie" on the main roster. It would make a lot of sense to do the Rock/Lesnar match at this year's WrestleMania 31 event just because if Lesnar leaves after WM31 then there's no other time they can do it. Perhaps WWE pitched the idea to The Rock that it was a "now or never" scenario where they said that if he wants to face Lesnar then this is the last chance. Since WWE added Seth Rollins to the WWE Title match, they can move the title off Lesnar without having him get pinned. Maybe Cena pins Rollins and then it's Cena that faces Rumble winner Roman Reigns. There are so many possibilities. By having a third man in the mach, Lesnar can remain strong going into that huge showdown with The Rock. Can you imagine Rock vs. Heyman promos? They would be amazing. There was a plan for The Rock vs. Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 30 that was going to start following WrestleMania 29. It was going to start on the Raw after The Rock lost the WWE Title to John Cena, but The Rock flew back home that afternoon due to various injuries that caused delays on his Hercules movie as well. The Rock ended up not wrestling at WrestleMania 30 although he did appear as a surprise guest. It's possible that The Rock may be in the Royal Rumble match. His cousin Roman Reigns is the favorite to win it, so maybe Rock wants to be in it to try to make his cousin look good. Doing an angle with Lesnar seems more likely than anything else, but you never really know.

The last time we saw The Rock on WWE TV was on Raw on October 6, 2014 when he showed up unannounced in Brooklyn when he was in town on other business. He talked trash to Rusev and Lana, then threw some punches that sent Rusev flying out of the ring. Rock didn't take a bump, but he looked sharp in the ring. Regarding Rock's movie schedule, the film Fast 7 is set to be released in the US on April 3rd. WrestleMania is on March 29. Most likely he's going to be doing a lot of press for Fast 7 in the weeks leading up to it, but that shouldn't prevent him from appearing on Raw to set up a WrestleMania match. He could mention WM31 as well during his movie interviews, so that's a big plus for WWE. This was a great idea by The Rock and WWE to get people thinking about what might happen. It's similar to what happened before Survivor Series when it was leaked via PWInsider that Sting would be there. That news came out two days before. This time it's one night before. It's also a lot more direct since it's The Rock posting on social media that he's in Philadelphia. Between Twitter and Instagram that's 14 million people, plus all the news outlets that will pick up on it. The Royal Rumble airs tonight on WWE Network. Will The Rock be there? Tune in to found out and stay with us at WhatCulture for all the news and analysis following the event as well.