At the Royal Rumble post-match press conference, WWE COO Paul “Triple H” Levesque addressed the rumors of The Rock returning for WrestleMania.

The Rock was rumored to be part of the Royal Rumble premium live event but “If ya smell….” never hit the speakers. While there was a huge buzz around him for being at the show, WWE never said that he would be there although there were a lot of hints dropped along the way.

Addressing the wrestling media, Triple H joked that they all told him that Johnson “can’t get in shape in time” before turning serious.

“He’s incredibly busy,” Levesque said. Noting that The Rock has an open-door invitation and can walk in to WWE at any time he wants to, he admitted that as for WrestleMania, “I just don’t think it’s in the cards.”

He said that there’s a part of Johnson that says if he could be there for Mania, he would “turn over every stone and walk through fire” to do it but other commitments are likely preventing it from happening.

“He wouldn’t want to do it unless he could absolutely do it, you know? There’s no way he would show up here and half-ass it,” Triple H said. “There’s no way he would show up here and not come in and put every single thing into it to make it the best it could possibly be. So unless he could do that, it won’t happen.”