Vince McMahon is smiling in his cryogenic chamber somewhere, the wires and steel tubes fortifying his musculature pulsing ecstatically. Why? Because he got him, goddammit. He got Gronk.
As first reported by Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin—with subsequent updates from TheWrap and TMZ—former New England Patriots tight end and current Fox Sports analyst Rob Gronkowski is slated to join the WWE, which currently airs its Friday Night Smackdown show on Fox. Gronk first debuted in WWE in 2017, when he helped his real-life pal Mojo Rawley win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
A source with TMZ clarifies that this doesn’t mean we can expect Gronk on a weekly basis, but rather a part-time one. Based on previous WWE trends, this means he’ll show up once every few months to squash one of the company’s devoted wrestlers, thus humiliating them and halting their momentum, before disappearing again. See, if there’s one thing that hurts the modern WWE product, it’s that it routinely offers up its workhorses to celebrities—including The Rock—that only show up when it’s convenient for them. Fuckin’ 53-year old Goldberg, who can barely go more than a few minutes in a ring these days, just squashed fan favorite “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt at one of the company’s blood money events in Saudi Arabia to become the Universal Championship. A truly baffling decision with absolutely no foresight.
ANYWAYS, we hope that doesn’t turn out to be the case with Gronk, but we’re not holding our breath. His return is planned for the March 20 edition of Smackdown, and he’ll follow that up with an appearance at next month’s Wrestlemania. He won’t be wrestling, per reports, but is said to be setting up a feud that we’re guessing will result in him beating the Intercontinental champ in, like, 90 seconds or something.