The Army Bet $11M on The Rock and UFL Ginning Up Enlistments. It May Have Actually Hurt Recruiting Efforts.
The high-dollar, high-profile deal likely didn't lead to a single new Army recruit and may possibly have had a negative impact on finding new enlistments, internal documents and emails reviewed by Military.com show.
I feel like they're a little incentivized to scapegoat the rock for more of the falling recruitment than is really true. Because he can be replaced and they can just go "whoopsie, let me try that again!", whilst the alternative is admitting the army's own behavior has tarnished it's reputation so badly that nothing they can do will salvage the generational bad blood they have created.