Brian Gewirtz recalls Triple H’s ‘tongue-in-cheek’ reaction to The Rock calling CM Punk after WWE Raw went off-air

Photo Courtesy: WWE

The moment occurred while Fighting with My Family was being filmed. 

Back in 2017, scenes for the Fighting with My Family film about Saraya f.k.a. Paige and her family were recorded at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California after Monday Night Raw.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions was one of the production companies behind the film. He was present for the scene(s) and came out to speak to the live audience. There was a point when the crowd began to chant ‘CM Punk’. Johnson then decided to call Punk but the call was not answered and Johnson left a voicemail. 

Senior Vice President at Seven Bucks Productions, Brian Gewirtz, recounted that moment while on The Masked Man Show. He was in Gorilla Position when it happened and said Johnson was not aware of the then-ongoing lawsuit between Punk and WWE. Gewirtz recalled Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque’s tongue-in-cheek response to the situation being, ‘Someone wanna remind him we’re in a f*cking lawsuit with this guy!’

The only time it ever kind of maybe qualified (possibly having to cut someone’s microphone) is when we were shooting Fighting with my Family at Staples Center and The Rock was in the ring and they’re chanting CM Punk and Rock, he doesn’t know what’s going on with the whole Punk-WWE backstage stuff and he pulls out his phone and is like, ‘Hey! What if I called CM Punk right now!?’ And then Triple H turns to me back in Gorilla and was like, ‘Someone wanna remind him we’re in a f*cking lawsuit with this guy!’ And Punk didn’t answer. He was doing something else at the time and so, it didn’t really matter and I think it was more said — I think Triple H said it, kind of tongue-in-cheek. He was not legitimately angry.

Later in the conversation, Gewirtz was asked about Johnson not publicly acknowledging The Bloodline storyline. He would be surprised if Johnson showed up on WWE programming while the SAG-AFTRA strike is happening. 

He added that he would be more surprised if The Rock never appeared in a ring for WWE again. Gewirtz shared his opinion that Johnson can harmlessly interact with Grayson Waller and those alike on social media but once he does that for The Bloodline, it’s game-on and it’ll be a hard door to close. 

First of all, The Rock does look at his social media. I don’t know how much you can cover when you have millions upon millions and millions of followers but somehow, he saw the Grayson Waller thing. We haven’t discussed it (Johnson getting involved with The Bloodline). I personally don’t think — obviously, there are bigger things going on in the world in general but even in the entertainment landscape, I would be — let’s just say this, even though WWE is not affiliated with any of the Guilds and not affiliated with S.A.G., I still think it’s a bad look for a prominent actor like The Rock, (John) Cena, Batista to appear on an entertainment program while there’s a strike going on while people are not getting paid and are striking and picketing every single day. Yes, it’s not the same but it’s also like, appearing on television in an entertainment capacity, it’s just not a great look when there’s a strike going on, for one thing. So I would say this, I would be shocked if The Rock appeared anytime soon while the strike is going on, but I would be equally, if not more shocked, if the Rock never appeared in a WWE ring again, and figuring in this storyline at some point too. But everything, it needs to be crafted and discussed and thought about and if The Rock — again, we’ve never talked about this. Just my opinion. If The Rock all of a sudden tweeted something about The Bloodline, it’s not like if I tweeted something about The Bloodline. Who gives a sh*t? If he tweeted something about The Bloodline, the gates of hell are open. It’s hard to close the door again once you do it. Once you dip your toe into the pool again, it’s on. You can tweet Grayson Waller and he can tweet back and it can be a funny little exchange and you can mention it again. But there’s not gonna be this pitchfork-like mentality of what are you waiting for? Do it. You started it. So you can have fun with that sort of thing but once you start doing The Bloodline thing, then it’s time to go and that’s why you gotta be very, very judicious and careful about it in my opinion.

Back in 2020, Johnson said he’d be honored to have Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns beat him at a WrestleMania. 

Going into this year’s WrestleMania, Reigns commented on the idea of a match against Johnson. 

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Masked Man Show with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.

About Andrew Thompson 8353 Articles
A Washington D.C. native and graduate of Norfolk State University, Andrew Thompson has been covering wrestling since 2017.