The Rock returned to WWE programming on SmackDown in September 2023 after a 4 year absence.
His latest appearance was on this week’s RAW. Both of these appearances weren’t advertised and both of his surprise appearances received insane pops from the crowd.
According to the Wrestling Observer, The Rock cares more about the pops from the crowd than the TV ratings, as appearing in WWE is more of a “fun” thing for him at this point than “business”:
“He’s doing this for fun because he doesn’t have to do it. And he’s doing it for excitement. That type of thing. That’s why when he came back Monday, it wasn’t announced at a time like if they had announced that ahead of time.
The rating would have been much higher, much higher than it was. He was doing it because in that case, he wanted that pop because of people in the building not knowing he was going to be there. And there he is. That’s what he wants.
Every time he comes back, they never announce it ahead of time. They’ll do the little tease, but they won’t do the announcement.”
This week’s “Day 1” edition of RAW drew 1.75 million viewers with a 0.60 rating in the 18-49 demo, which is up from last week’s 698,000 viewers with a 0.18 rating for the 2023 highlight show.
The Rock’s return segment on TV drew 2.15 million viewers with a 0.79 rating in the 18-49 demo (which equals to 1 million viewers in the 18-49 age group), which is a number that RAW hasn’t done in a while.
WWE is now reporting that The Rock broke their all-time social media record by drawing over 171 million views on all social media platforms combined for his return.
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