Well, this is a fascinating look at Rob Gronkowski’s short-lived professional wrestling career.
WWE on Friday released a short teaser for its upcoming “24” special on WrestleMania, and the clip centered around Gronkowski’s appearance as host of the two-night special event in April.
More specifically, the video shows Gronkowski taking his cues from WWE chairman Vince McMahon, with 74-year-old McMahon explaining a relatively simple stunt to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end. McMahon not only tells Gronkowski how things will go, he shows him, too.
Check it out:
On its own, the video of a senior citizen demonstrating a stunt to a doe-eyed professional football player is highly entertaining. But what makes video enthralling is it certainly seems to reinforce a report about Gronkowski’s time in the WWE.
Shortly after Gronkowski decided to unretire from football, leaving the WWE to join Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, a report surfaced about his wrestling stint. In May, Fightful reported Gronkowski was “terrified” to do the stunt. Judging by the video, he certainly didn’t seem overly eager to take the plunge. The Fightful report also mentioned McMahon demonstrating the move, while also detailing the buzz it generated among members of the locker room. Obviously, McMahon’s demonstration is there in the video, and comments from Kevin Owens and Drew McIntyre certainly speak to the locker room reaction.
Perhaps it was one of those two who was the source for a Sean Ross Sapp report on Fightful Select that lambasted Gronkowski for being difficult to work with, with an unnamed star calling Gronk a “f—— clown, who we are so much better off without.” The same report also said just about everyone “had negative things to say about working with Gronk after his WrestleMania fiasco.”
Sheesh.
All in all, it’s probably best for everyone that Gronkowski is back on the football field catching passes from Brady with the Bucs. According to early reports, he’s having a much easier time acclimating himself there than he did with the WWE — but that’s not really saying much.
