The legend continues. We are now down to the top 10. If you missed the other parts here is 25-21, 20-16, 15-11. Here we go with numbers 10-6:
10. “Macho Man” Randy Savage
Joe: Most people will say Andre the Giant is Hogan’s greatest rival, but to me it will forever be the Macho Man. The Mega Powers exploding at WrestleMania V is something I’ve written about before and is my favorite feud of all time and what I believe to be the best built Mania main event ever. He worked as a foil for Hulkamania because he was just as coked up as Hogan and equally incoherent. Randy Savage is probably known by most people as the Slim Jim guy, but aside from enjoying wonderful snack food he was one of the greatest performers to ever lace up a pair of boots. Savage was a terrific worker. The match with Ricky Steamboat from WrestleMania III is always hailed as a classic. Macho always had the coolest theme song and entrance gear. Miss Elizabeth, his real life wife, was one of the greatest managers of all time. From the time I was a little boy I’ve always been a big Macho Man fan and I was very sad when he died last year. The images of Savage doing the double axehandle smash off the top rope and the diving elbow drop are some of my earliest wrestling memories. I will always remember those more than his rap album where he calls out Hulk Hogan for a legit fight. Macho was a perfectionist in the ring and it is great to see the WWE start to embrace his legacy more over the last few years.
Jimmy: The Macho Man was an absolutely friggin ridiculous human being. I don’t even know what more to say besides that. He had the two best WWF matches of the 80s, at Wrestlemania III against Ricky Steamboat and V against Hogan. The Hogan feud in particular is the pinnacle of WWF’s creativity. The Mega Powers formation and explosion was so well done it is absolutely stunning that it came from the mind of Vince McMahon. His career vs. career match and feud carried the Ultimate Warrior to the greatest match that goof was ever capable of having. Therein lies the beauty of Savage - while his character, voice and mannerisms were absurdly over the top, he deserved his spot since he was a better worker than most in the ring. He was also the greatest pro wrestler to take up a career as a rapper. The best thing you can say about Randy Savage was that no matter how serious or how ridiculous the storyline he was involved in, he was alway believable and he never phoned it in.
9. Chris Jericho
Joe: If there was an MVP award in professional wrestling, Chris Jericho would totally get it for carrying the WWE and being the most entertaining part of Monday Night Raw, the company’s flagship show, from the fall of 2002 through 2005. WCW failed because they never built up new stars other than Goldberg, but if they had been smart they would have pushed Jericho all the way to the top. There are only maybe two or three guys ahead of Jericho on this list I would say are better in-ring workers, and when it comes to mic skills only Flair and The Rock may be better. He can be hilarious or deadly serious and always the most entertaining guy on the screen while he does it. You could put Jericho in any feud or put any championship on him. He made Shelton Benjamin look like a threat and he gave Cena the rub. There’s nothing Jericho can’t do, and of course his career highlight is being the first WWE Undisputed Champion, beating The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in the same night. Despite that honor, Jericho never got the super push he deserved and Triple H made him look like a punk numerous times in the early 2000s. His debut in the WWF is probably the greatest debut in the history of wrestling and he had two incredible feuds with Shawn Michaels in 2003 and 2008 that each had classic matches: their WrestleMania match in 2003 and their ladder match for the World Championship in 2008.
Jimmy: I’m a bit partial towards Jericho, as I believe he was the best part of WCW and WWE at various times during his runs there. In WCW, he was the Man of 1004 Holds and owner of Ralphus Security, and if not for the old-timers running the company, could have pushed the cruiserweights into the main event where they belonged. He came to the WWF with a ton of momentum, where it was promptly thwarted by Triple H. Despite that, he managed to get the honor of unifying the WCW and WWF titles by beating the Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in the same nite, a remarkable feat for someone who was never pushed as hard as either man. From 2002-2005, he carried RAW and was the only consistently entertaining performer on the show. I’m not as big a fan of his run in WWE the past few years, but I also haven’t really watched it with any consistently. The best thing you can say about Jericho is that he could either open the show or main event and it worked. While he was always pushed to the mid-to upper mid-card, he could always believably main event and fans could buy into him enough to know that he could be champion. If this list was favorite wrestlers of all-time, Jericho would be in my top 5 with (in no particular order) Bret, Hogan, Mr. Perfect and Sabu.
8. The Undertaker
Jimmy: The perfect marriage between performer and gimmick, there is no logical reason for the Undertaker to have been so successful and still popular nearly 25 years after his debut. It is a testament to Mark Callaway’s charisma that he and only he could make this character work from its roots as a dead dude to Satanic cult leader in the Ministry of Darkness to American BadAss to back to the Dead Man. I feel like part of this is due to the fact that he is a considerably better worker than most big men in pro wrestling and that the workhorses like Hart and Flair loved working matches with him. I’m fairly certain every gimmick match ever performed that isn’t a steel cage match came out of a feud with Undertaker. He never really was the number 1 guy in the company, but he was rewarded by getting to win at Wrestlemania every single time and it has defined his career. An added bonus to that is the fact that over the past five years or so, his Mania matches, while predictable in outcome, have been great. All in all, a pretty great career for someone who should have had a one or two year lifespan, tops.
Joe: This is a weird way to phrase this, but while Taker isn’t the greatest wrestler of all time he is probably the greatest WWE Superstar ever. This November it will be 22 years since he made his debut at Survivor Series. He never jumped ship to WCW. He is a homegrown WWE star and has been there longer than anybody else. It is the perfect union of performer and gimmick, as the idea of this large unstoppable dead guy who whoops everybody’s ass never could have worked with anybody else. He will most likely extend his WrestleMania record to 20-0 this weekend, a record that will never be touched. Taker is the best working big man in the history of the business and has been praised for his ability and professionalism by guys like Ric Flair, JBL, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and many others. Taker is one of the most over guys in the history of the business. The second the lights go out and that gong hits the crowd is ready to explode. His entrance may take like 10 minutes, but it is still exciting every time. Of course Undertaker jobs to nobody and you could literally count on one hand the times in his career he has lost clean, but he is the heart and soul of the WWE locker room. Taker had the bizarre run as the American Badass where he became some kind of hardcore biker who liked Limp Bizkit, but he’s since returned to the Deadman persona that got him to the dance.
7. Andre the Giant
Jimmy: I ranked Andre 3rd overall and Joe had him at 12, but I don’t think he fully understands just what a massive star Andre the Giant was. In an era now where massive men are par for the course, Andre would still be bigger and in the pre-ppv and cable days of the 70s and 80s there was no one more important. He carried the industry into the Hulkamania days and his feud with the aforementioned Hulkster really put Hogan over the top. Prior to that, Andre was viewed as the undefeated, immovable object both by fans and everyone in the industry. Grantland recently posted a great article about this feud and how important it was that states the case far better than I can, but I’ll sum it up. Basically, Andre didn’t do the job for anyone and certainly wouldn’t let himself get bodyslammed by someone. The only way the defining moment of Hogan’s career and 80s WWF happens is if Andre lets it, despite Hogan’s claims that he manhandled the Giant. The consensus has always been Hogan was shitting himself because Andre could be mercurial and may have refused to do the job or the slam mid-match and there wouldn’t have been anything Hogan could do. But, it didn’t work out this way and not only did he turn heel for the first time in his career for this feud, but he allowed the slam in the biggest Mania main event of all-time to this day. It was the only time Hogan was the physical underdog and they managed to tell a story and blow up the Silverdome with the slam and push Hulkamania into a new level. Simply put, Hogan never becomes the most powerful wrestler in the world and the WWF doesn’t jump off into the stratosphere without that moment.
Joe: I’m never a fan of big guys since they can’t actually work a match, but Andre was great for what he was. He set the standard for the big, badass giant and is the reason that in the last like 25 years no other big guy has worked since everybody comes off as a bad Andre rip off. One of the biggest stars in the history of the business, Andre took part in the biggest WrestleMania main event ever when he faced off against Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania III. Hogan bodyslams him in front of 90,000 people and Hulkamania becomes the strongest force in the universe. I don’t have as much interest in Andre as my brother, but I always love the stories Hulk Hogan has of Andre shitting in bathtubs and stuff. To this day he remains one of the most popular figures in the history of the business and it is because of that main event with Hogan that the Hulkster could become the super duper star that would carry wrestling into the mainstream.
6. The Rock
Joe: The jabroni beating, pie eating, trail blazing, eyebrow raising People’s Champion, The Rock has charisma unrivaled by almost everybody. He is mainly a movie star now but in the last year has vowed to be more of a part of the WWE again. While never a terrific in-ring worker, his promos made him the biggest star on the planet other than Steve Austin. His matches with Austin at WrestleMania X-7 and XIX are classics, and his matches with Hogan at X8 and the upcoming bout with Cena at XXVIII are two of the biggest the WWE has ever had. His charisma is unstoppable. All he has to do is raise one eyebrow and everybody goes wild. The crowd’s reaction to his return last year when his music hit was one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen in the WWE. The Rock is so entertaining it is ridiculous and people eat up everything he says. He is one of the three biggest stars in the history of wrestling along with Hogan and Austin and with his crossover popularity he may be the biggest. The fact WWE put his name on the marquee for WrestleMania XXVIII a year in advance and have already said he’ll be a part of next year’s show is proof.
Jimmy: The most successful wrestler besides maybe Hogan, the Rock was a decent worker with through the roof charisma. Probably the most charismatic entertainer in WWF/E history, the man was a walking catchphrase machine. What is unprecedented about the Rock is that for a guy who was a number one draw he was more than willing to do the job for someone else to get them over. He did the most of anyone to get Brock Lesnar over on his way out to become a movie star and made Mick Foley a credible rival for the title. I can’t think of anyone that he didn’t have an interesting feud with, to the point where he even made Hurricane Helms watchable. While the next person on this list really jumpstarted the Attitude Era, the Rock was the one that took it to its zenith and managed to transcend pro wrestling in a way that even the Hulkster couldn’t. While many criticize him for leaving the business, its a testament to just how popular he really was that he could leave the industry and have a career in real movies and not tripe like Mr. Nanny or Santa With Muscles. This weekend he headlines Wrestlemania with John Cena, giving him two of the biggest selling matches in the past decade for the WWE.
That is it for today. The conclusion will most likely come tomorrow.
Showing posts with label Randy Savage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Randy Savage. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
What a Difference 23 Years Makes: The WWE and the Lost Art of Building an Epic Main Event
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.
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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