9 Wrestlers Who Fell Off HARD In 2025
6. The Rock
As the Final Boss, the Rock was sensational in 2024.
WWE was peaking creatively under Paul Levesque’s regime, but one thing about Levesque’s approach is that it is a little patterned and formal. When it works, Levesque shows you the destination - but makes you want to go there. As refreshing as this is, in contrast to Vince McMahon’s inscrutable slop anyway, it’s a bit boring isn’t it?
The Rock, morphing into the Final Boss, brought a very real anxiety and edge to what might be the best build to a WrestleMania show this side of 1989.
He toyed with the idea of taking Cody Rhodes’ spot - which if nothing else elicited real emotion - before backtracking and taking his bruised ego out on the uncrowned WWE champion. The Rock’s blood-soaked, foul-mouthed, vicious campaign was incredible, and he was so locked-in that he performed free of charge on Instagram just to swear his head off for the love of the game.
On the Raw after WrestleMania 40, Rock essentially confirmed that he’d return to face Cody at WrestleMania 42.
On the Raw Is Netflix premiere, the Rock revealed that he was Cody’s good mate in real life.
On the first show on the fabled road, the Rock blocked his own path to WrestleMania. In his defence, all he did was remove himself as a distraction from your fantasy booking. It was good that he clarified his status.
Still, opening the show with a curtain call was a breathtakingly dumb choice - as was the Rock appearing to cancel, not merely postpone, the Cody match. Rock then appeared on NXT (!) and basically said that he wasn’t owned for 15 minutes straight before somehow running out of time. He said nothing of substance; he swore for some cheap pops and kept saying he was getting emotional. The cynics reckon that the Rock has an origami ego and does things just to feel good about himself. It was hard to argue with them here.
He was unavailable for WrestleMania, but still played a part in John Cena’s heel turn. His verbal performance when persuading Cody to part with his soul was yet more evidence of that thin skin; the man simply could not play an evil man without dropping in a few one-liners.
The Rock’s head fell clean off in 2025.