TJR: What The Rock Means To WrestleMania 27
By John Canton
This coming Monday night on Raw, it’s expected that Vince McMahon will announce Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the guest host of WrestleMania. Granted, it could be somebody else, but let’s roll with the idea that it will in fact be The Rock. The question is what kind of impact does The Rock have on WrestleMania 27 in Atlanta? The short answer is a huge impact. Let’s delve into it a bit further.
Here’s the potential WrestleMania lineup as rumored with my quick thoughts on each match as far as drawing power:
The Miz vs. John Cena for the WWE Title – It does have freshness as a main event feud, but Cena in a WWE/World Title match at Mania has been done for 6 straight years. It’s nothing new.
Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio for the World Title – Del Rio’s a new star getting the push. Edge has been there before. It’s not huge in terms of anticipation.
Undertaker vs. Triple H – The rumor was Wade Barrett. That is off according to the Wrestling Observer. Sting? I’m not sure. I doubt it. I think it will be Triple H with Shawn Michaels as ref. That’s interesting, but it’s not going to be as good as Michaels-Taker the last two years.
CM Punk vs. Randy Orton – A strong match with a lot of freshness to it. For a fourth from the top match it’s pretty good.
After that you’ve got the midcard. There will likely be a Money in the Bank match again to get 8 guys on the card. Then there’s the divas match. Does any of that appeal to you that much? Probably not.
When you say “The WrestleMania guest host is The Rock” suddenly your interest is higher. Right? Granted, that doesn’t mean he is wrestling. I’m sure that a lot of people think he will be wrestling. I’m not one of them.
As I wrote in my June 2010 column where I suggested 20 ideas for WWE to consider, you don’t need The Rock to wrestle. His star power alone is enough. A face to face promo duel with CM Punk would be great. Maybe Stone Cold Steve Austin could be there too since Tough Enough needs to be promoted. They could hit their finishers on a comedic heel. The fans would love that. It would be a WrestleMania moment.
His last match was at WrestleMania 20 in 2004. That’s 7 years. People that still wrestle seven years after their last match usually do it for the money. Rock doesn’t need money. He’s loaded. If he’s featured throughout the show in four or five different segments that would work. An in-ring promo would be nice. Some funny backstage sketches would work too. There are a lot of things The Rock could do.
To me, the most important thing is getting him there. Sign his name on the dotted line. It’s been so long since he’s been in a WWE ring that just seeing him there will be a draw to people. Frankly, it feels like WWE needs him and it’s good to know that Vince is willing to shell out whatever money is necessary to get him. If The Rock’s presence causes WrestleMania to get 900,000 buys instead of 800,000 buys (those numbers are just random examples) then he’s worth the $5 million price tag I suggested back in June.
What does The Rock mean to WrestleMania? Buzz. Interest. The almighty dollar. He means more than any of the current stars too. Sign him up Vince. You need him especially this year. Congratulations on being smart enough to know it.
What do you think? I was going to put up a Rock poll, but I’ll wait to see if it’s official on Monday and I’ll put it in The Raw Deal instead.
John Canton – [email protected]
Add me on Facebook at Facebook.com/thejohnreportnet and Twitter at @johnreport
Since I am only writing about Raw on a weekly basis, I’ll be popping up at thejohnreport.net with shorter pieces of writing like this one. I don’t have a specific name for them, but I’ll do them as often as I can. There will be some epic pieces soon too. Keep visiting! Bookmark it now!
