Brian Gewirtz Denies The Rock's WWE SmackDown Segment Ran Long

The Rock's longtime writing partner (and SVP of Development for his Seven Bucks Productions company) Brian Gewirtz has responded to reports that The Great One's segment on the March 15 edition of SmackDown overran, meaning that time had to be cut from other matches on the show.

Responding to Cultaholic's post on X - which quoted a report by Fightful Select - Gewirtz wrote that, "The segment went 30 seconds under its allotted 20 minutes". Gewirtz has been involved with The Rock's creative during the 51-year-old's recent WWE run. 

The segment in question was the "Rock Concert" which, according to Fightful's report, went long and meant that a match between the Latino World Order and Legado Del Fantasma (including the post-match angle involving Rey Mysterio) was significantly shortened. According to the report, those within WWE expected the Rock Concert segment to go longer than planned.

Other reports have suggested that some WWE talents are unhappy with The Rock cursing in the promos he has posted on his social media channels in recent weeks. Some have apparently claimed that there are double standards at play, since the vast majority of WWE stars have to adhere to strict PG guidelines.

The Rock will wrestle his first proper WWE match in over a decade at WrestleMania XL (night one) on April 6, when he teams up with Roman Reigns to take on Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins.