The Rock has recalled suffering several injuries during his WWE Championship match against John Cena at WrestleMania 29.
After defeating John Cena in their “Once in a Lifetime” match at WrestleMania 28, The Rock dropped the WWE Title to Cena in the main event of the following year’s Show of Shows.
While speaking with Esquire, The Rock reacted to a photo of him facing Cena at WrestleMania 28, noting:
“For me to bring this match back home in front of my family and hometown crowd and win, awesome. But I also knew a year later I not only had the honor, but I also had the obligation to return this favor to John Cena.
Explaining his thought process following injuries in, what he believed at the time to be his final match at WrestleMania 29, The Rock continued:
“So, I was champion, we went into the next WrestleMania in New York, MetLife Stadium. That night was a very special match because it was my final match. And that was the night where I got hurt in the beginning of the match and I wound up tearing my adductor, which it kind of runs up the middle of your leg. It allows you to open your legs and do things like that.
“So I tore that, and then I tore my quad up my pelvis. So, I tore everything, which then caused, in the middle of the match, and we still had 20 minutes left to wrestle, which then caused a chain reaction in my abdomen. I wound up tearing my abdomen wall.
“Referee came and said ‘Are you ok? Can you go on?’ And I went ‘Yeah, I’m good, I’m going to push through this.’ He pinned me one, two, three and I remember looking up at the lights of the stadium, and looking into the clouds because it was open.
“I was like, ‘This is my last match, and this is how I’m going out, from a business that I love, on my back, f**ked up.’ But watching him climb the ropes and hold up that title, it was very surreal but also very gratifying. So I love this match (WrestleMania 28), because this match led to that one. (WrestleMania 29)”
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The Rock has returned to the ring twice since then, defeating Erick Rowan in six seconds at WrestleMania 32 in 2016, and teaming with Roman Reigns to defeat Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 40 in 2024.
While The Rock’s full-time WWE career may be over, he remains a member of TKO’s board of directors, a fact recently touted by TKO President Mark Shapiro.
Fans will always be excited to see him appear on our screens, even if he hasn’t made a significant on-screen appearance for WWE since Elimination Chamber 2025.
The Rock recently addressed missing out on an Oscar nomination for his role in The Smashing Machine, click here to read more.
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