The year was 1989. It was WWF WrestleMania V live from the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City. The main event was the culmination of a year of booking: Hulk Hogan taking on WWF Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage in a match between the two biggest guys in the business billed as “The Mega Powers Explode.” It took the WWF exactly one year to get to the match and the build worked perfectly. Over the course of a year we saw Savage and Hogan become partners, beat the hell out of the bad guys, and ultimately become arch enemies. As far as feuds taking place over the course of a year go, it is the greatest thing the WWF, now WWE, has ever done.
It all began at WrestleMania IV, also in Trump Plaza. After Andre the Giant defeated Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship in controversial fashion on The Main Event, it was revealed The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase orchestrated the entire thing so Andre would sell him the belt. The championship was vacated and a tournament was scheduled for Mania. Hogan and Andre were both disqualified during their match, giving Ted DiBiase a bye on his way to the finals. On the other side of the bracket, Savage had to overcome the gigantic One Man Gang and was drained going into his match up with DiBiase to crown the new champion. The Million Dollar Man brought Andre down to the ring with him and the Giant continually interfered in the match. Savage’s manager, Miss Elizabeth, ran backstage and emerged a few moments later with Hulk Hogan.
Hogan helped Savage win the match and The Mega Powers team was formed. At SummerSlam, The Mega Powers beat Andre and DiBiase and began to dominate the wrestling scene. However, while Hogan and Savage did beat all comers, trouble was brewing within the team. Savage was becoming upset with the way Hogan would act towards Elizabeth. He felt Hogan was acting overly friendly toward his woman. As if fear over Hogan stealing his woman wasn’t enough, Hogan accidentally eliminated Savage in the 1989 Royal Rumble. The nail in the coffin occurred a few weeks later on another edition of The Main Event and the stage was set for a WrestleMania showdown between the company’s biggest stars.
Savage and Hogan were up against a team known as the Twin Towers, Akeem and the Big Boss Man. Savage was thrown out of the ring during the match and landed on Elizabeth, knocking her out. Hogan carried Elizabeth to the back, leaving Savage to fend for himself against the two massive competitors for a few minutes. When Hogan came back, Savage tagged him in by slapping him in the face, took his championship, and left. After Hogan defeated the Towers, he went to the back to check on Elizabeth again only to find Macho Man there. Savage then accused Hogan of lusting for Elizabeth and the WWF Championship while Hogan told him to relax. Macho hit Hogan with the belt and proceeded to beat the hell out of him.
It was a brilliant drama that unfolded over the course of a year. Before Hogan went out for his match with Savage he did an interview with Mean Gene Okerlund preceded by a video package chronicling the exploits of The Mega Powers. When the video ended, Okerlund exclaimed, “What a difference a year makes!” Hogan then proceeded to cut the best promo of his career, summing up what happened during that year and explaining the magnitude of their match.
Of course there was no doubt Hogan would win since Hogan always won and it was the only thing that made sense in terms of the storyline, but the build up to the Mega Powers exploding was still epic. The two biggest stars in the company right at the top for an entire year with the biggest prize in the business between them. It was brilliant booking and it culminated in an intense WrestleMania match tying up a year’s worth of storylines. It was perfect story telling by the WWF and something we’ve seen they could never match with a year to work.
This is most evidenced by the main event of WrestleMania XXVIII this year being billed as the biggest main event in the history of the WWE: John Cena vs. The Rock. The WWE will tell you this is going to be a war and we should all be excited, but unless you are a little kid it is hard to buy anything other than Cena winning. The WWE made this match literally the day after WrestleMania XXVII and the build has been piss poor considering they have had a year to craft an epic story but have instead done nothing but tie up the main event of the biggest show of the year with an underwhelming match.
The Rock, now Dwayne Johnson to the public since he’s a movie star, made his heroic return to the WWE last year on Valentine’s Day when it was announced he was the guest host of last year’s Mania. He came out to one of the biggest pops in history. Instantly grown men were transformed into little kids, jumping up and down and swinging their arms like weirdos. The Rock then cut a promo saying he was back for the fans and it is because of them he would never leave again. He missed a few episodes of Raw leading to WrestleMania. At Mania he hit Cena with the Rock Bottom, costing him the WWE Championship, and stood tall to end the show. The next night on Raw he extended the challenge to Cena for WrestleMania XXVIII, in Rock’s hometown of Miami. Cena accepted, and Rocky was off WWE TV until his birthday in May and then made sporadic appearances via pre-taped promos.
Finally in the fall he came back to team with Cena at Survivor Series and demolish The Miz and R. Truth. He appeared on the episode of Raw right before the pay per view, then was gone after hitting another Rock Bottom on Cena to end Survivor Series.
The Rock will be on Raw tonight but has yet to appear on WWE television in person this year since he is making movies, despite having the biggest spot on the biggest card of the year. This is a huge problem as it makes building a match extremely difficult when you make it a year in advance then only one guy is around to promote it. Another issue is the fact The Rock has buried Cena in every promo he’s cut. Granted it has been cool to hear the biggest star from my generation say Cena is lame as hell, but in build up to a match it sucks because when Rocky loses he’s just lost to a guy he’s made look like absolute crap for a year.
But still the biggest issue is the fact The Rock is hardly around but yet was given the main event at the biggest show a year in advance. This has angered many, and for good reason. The issue of course is not with the match itself. It is a brilliant business decision since The Rock is one of the three biggest stars in the history of the business along with Steve Austin and Hulk Hogan. This match also gets a lot of older fans who don’t pay attention to the product as much anymore to tune back in since the big star of their generation is back to do battle with the big star of the current generation. Nostalgia always works.
Booking a match publicly, one year in advance ties up too many things in terms of storylines and of course upsets too many of the workers. The Rock is not even a regular performer anymore but WWE just placed him above work horses like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. Granted even if the build to this match started in January of this year it would still be the main event, but having it announced only a month or two in advance would be better than essentially declaring an entire year’s worth of storylines is useless since Cena and Rock will be at the top of the big show no matter what.
When Punk cut his now legendary “worked shoot” promo back in June, he said it made him sick that The Rock was given the main event at WrestleMania a year in advance. This promo of course starts the chain of events that makes the Rock-Cena super fight a little less epic. For years now Cena has been getting booed, and of course when face-to-face with one of the biggest stars ever in The Rock he gets booed a lot, but once Punk became the number one contender to Cena’s WWE title last June, his spot in the company changed drastically. Punk’s promo got him over with the fans like nothing we’ve seen in a long time and the rest is history. Punk beats Cena for the WWE Championship and is cheered as a hero everywhere they go, making the WWE’s top guy not look like the superhero they always want him to be. It diminished Cena’s star power a little bit and turned Punk into the must-see guy.
But the problem with all of that was that no matter how bad things got for Cena, you knew he wouldn’t really lose that bad or anything since he had to be kept looking strong for his match with The Rock. He also foolishly stayed in the title picture since he wanted to make his match with The Rock for the WWE title. This is silly since if The Rock were to win he would be off TV for like a year so there would be no way the belt is defended. When Cena fought in a Hell in a Cell against Alberto Del Rio and Punk they made it seem like everything was at stake for Cena but there was no real suspense. No matter what happened you knew Cena would be fine since he was just keeping busy while we all waited for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s return.
This was especially true for the absolutely dreadful feud Cena just finished up with Kane. Kane continually jumped Cena and his friend Zack Ryder because he was upset Cena won’t embrace the hate of the WWE fans or something that didn’t make sense like that. They milked this awful crap for two months just so Cena and Kane both had something to do. When it all culminated in an ambulance match two weeks ago at Elimination Chamber, it was so obvious Cena would be fine since the push for WrestleMania started the next night on Raw and of course he’s going to look like a beast when the hype for his match with The Rock starts up.
And it is pretty bad that since WrestleMania XX, The Rock has only worked one match and that was Survivor Series this past November. So I’m supposed to believe the guy who is working every week, night in and night out, is going to get his ass wrecked by a guy who has done more Disney movies than wrestling matches in the last eight years? Of course since it is professional wrestling we’re supposed to suspend our disbelief, but taking that sort of thing into account makes it pretty easy to figure out what is going to happen at Mania. Just look at The Rock’s match with Hogan ten years ago to see how this will be.
Hogan had not been in the WWE for eight years and The Rock was the biggest star in the business. They faced off at WrestleMania and the crowd was behind Hogan out of nostalgia, but you’ve got to put over the new generation so Hogan did the job for Rock. The exact same thing is happening now. What was better about the build for Rock-Hogan though was the fact they announced it one month in advance, not a year.
If they wanted to do a year-long build for Rock-Cena, you don’t announce the match the night after Mania last year, you just have The Rock make appearances in person throughout the year bickering with Cena and working a couple matches here and there so he seems like he’s actually part of the roster. Then at the Royal Rumble in January you have them eliminate each other in some sort of shenanigans so the next night on Raw they challenge each other to an epic Mania showdown, and you do a contract signing at Elimination Chamber to build the tension, then at Mania you can sum up a year’s worth of conflict. Instead it was like they announced the match a year in advance to sell tickets faster and this lack of appearances makes it seem like The Rock just wants a big paycheck.
The match was put into perspective by Cena last week on Raw. He cut a shoot promo on The Rock where he essentially summed up why he is going to win at WrestleMania and why it would only make sense for him to win, killing all suspense associated with the match if anybody thought Cena’s win was in doubt. Cena talked about how The Rock left the WWE to make movies and how he has an entourage now to do everything for him. He talked about how The Rock will come out, get the crowd fired up, then will leave for Hollywood again. Cena called The Rock out for only returning to promote his Twitter account and had a classic line about how the best part of this feud will be that the week after WrestleMania, when The Rock will be filming another movie while Cena is on Raw still.
The internet has also hurt the build to this match because you can go to Dwayne Johnson’s IMDb page and see he has five movies in the works right now so you know his time in WWE is not going to last. He is going to come out at WrestleMania, do the job to Cena, come out the next night on Raw, give Cena props, then be gone again. It is a turn of events that could have been built up in two months but instead the WWE has given it 12, and in turn weakened a year’s worth of events because it was already set in stone that only one man in the world poses a true threat to Cena.
WWE wanted this to be an epic build to an epic conflict, but instead it seems forced and lame and makes you think The Rock isn’t totally in this for the fans like he claims since he has made few attempts to really promote the match. It only makes sense for Cena to win, and Cena is likely going to win. When Hogan and Savage squared off after a year in the spotlight it was the natural progression of an angle culminating at the year’s biggest event and was a great business move. Rock-Cena is a strained and forced attempt at selling as many tickets and pay per views as possible. It is a great business move, but in terms of storylines it solves absolutely nothing but proves that Vince McMahon and Co. still have no idea how to book in this era even though they used to be great at it two decades ago.
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