Update On The Rock's WWE WrestleMania 43 Status

The Rock has not appeared on WWE TV since he brought about John Cena's heel turn at Elimination Chamber 2025, and it appears Dwayne Johnson might not be back for WrestleMania 43.

WrestleVotes Radio on Fightful Select has reported that WWE's creative team are currently operating under the assumption that The Rock won't be available for a major angle during the build to WrestleMania 43. This doesn't mean The Rock won't appear at WrestleMania 43, but the current assumption is he won't be in a substantial storyline for WWE's biggest weekend of 2027.

WrestleMania 43 will be the first edition of the show to take place outside of North America, with WrestleMania heading to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in April 2027, with WWE reportedly set to pocket over $100 million from the deal with Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority, an organisation headed by Turki Alalshikh, a man who allegedly has a Saudi prison wing named after his nickname.

While The Rock was more involved on WWE TV between January 2024 and February 2025 as part of a deal with TKO that saw him join the TKO board of directors and wrestle at WrestleMania 40, receiving $21.7 million in TKO shares in the process, Dwayne Johnson has been more involved in Hollywood over the past 18 months.

Those movie commitments are believed to prevent The Rock from working a major storyline for WrestleMania 43, with the movie Fast Forever set to begin filming in December of 2026.