The Rock Recalls Finishing WrestleMania 29 Bout After Injury

The Rock famously worked his way through an injury in his WrestleMania 29 match with John Cena, and in a new interview he explained why he finished the bout. The Great One suffered a torn abdomen while also tearing his adductor and quad tendons in the match and continued another 20 minutes through to the finish. He recently appeared on NPW’s Fresh Air promoting The Smashing Machine and recalled the injury, noting that he felt he needed to finish the match as he knew it would be his last match at the time.

“In this WrestleMania match, if [Cena] would have asked me, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ And I say, ‘No, there is something wrong,’ and he says, ‘Okay, let’s go home,’ we would know where to pick up,” Rock said. “It’s almost like you go right to the third act of the script, and we would go home. That would be the end of the match. I didn’t want to tell John that because I knew the match would end, and I didn’t want the match to end in that way. Not only was it important to me to go out on my shield, I knew this was my very last match of my entire career. My career was going to end on this night. No one knew, but I knew.”

He continued, “The other reason, and maybe more important than my career ending, I was doing the honors. That means you’re passing the torch to someone who is going to carry it from here on out. That was to John, and that was the finish to our match; me doing the honors for him and him beating me in the middle of the ring to become champion. That’s why I didn’t want the match to end right away. I wanted him to have his moment. That’s important.”

Rock didn’t return to the ring for a match again until WrestleMania 40 when he teamed with Roman Reigns against Seth Rollins & Cody Rhodes.