Backstage news on how The Rock's sudden return could impact WrestleMania 41 - Reports

The Rock appeared on SmackDown tonight for a few reasons - to announce WrestleMania 42 in New Orleans, to tell Cody Rhodes that he wants his soul (to sell out to him), and to announce that he will be at Elimination Chamber in Toronto for Cody Rhodes. But how exactly has this impacted WrestleMania 41?

Thankfully, Fightful Select had a very detailed report about all things surrounding The Rock and his sudden WWE return. It was reported that the creative team was only informed of his return a few days ago, so it led to a lot of last-minute scrambling, such as Cody Rhodes being removed from the main event.

According to the report from Fightful Select, it's unclear as to how it's going to immediately impact the future. It was stated that Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena had been in the plans since late last year, while Roman Reigns is still expected to face Seth Rollins and CM Punk in a Triple Threat match. However, it was noted that back in October, WWE Creative was reportedly preparing storylines for WrestleMania with the assumption that The Rock wouldn't be there.

One top talent supposedly told Ibou, of Self Made PW, that WrestleMania was at the mercy of Dwayne Johnson.

As for the segment itself, the writer was noted to be Cristian Scovell, who works on most of Cody Rhodes' segments, while Michael Hayes was the producer of the segment.

The interaction between The Rock and Cody Rhodes left a lot of questions as very little seemed clear. He told Cody Rhodes that he wanted his soul and not the Undisputed WWE Title.

The future implications of all of this are going to be interesting to see in the coming days.