WrestleMania's Main Event and the Wisdom of Rock Über Alles

The popular call, but was it the right call?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

I'm going to cite my prior blog postings to set the stage for this one. First:

but I think the big thing is that they can't end the match on a note where a large portion of fans are going to feel gypped. They have to give more of a WrestleMania VII feel rather than a X-7 one.

Second:

The show ended with Rocky standing tall. Okay, I can get the complaints here of why a guy who isn't going to be with the company on a regular basis standing tall over the two guys who just main evented WrestleMania. HOWEVER, it's what the fans wanted. I think as a fanservice main event, ESPECIALLY when the plan was Miz retaining the title, it worked.

In that light, the WWE, with their decision to keep the title on The Miz and have The Rock being the one to stand tall at the end of WrestleMania, was a correct one. It popped the crowd. It sent them home happy. At WrestleMania, that's important. However, after a day of soul-searching, reading, reacting, eating, running errands and buying my dog treats (okay, the last three of those have nothing to do with how I came to my conclusion, but WELCOME TO A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WRESTLING BLOGGER, FOLKS!), I'm wondering if it was THE right call. For that, I go back to the first post I linked to:

And really, you have three of the most gifted entertainers in the history of the WWE, veritably its past, present and future all in the same ring. The historical confluence here may turn out to be pretty epic if you ask me. However, no matter what happens, it needs to put a satisfying stamp on the show. Right now, the WWE is at a crossroads. They will have a lot of eyes on the product, moreso than usual thanks to Rocky, and I think they need to prove that their current and future crop of stars are worthy of attention, not just the returnees like The Rock, Steve Austin, Trish Stratus and the folks who are on their way out like Triple H and Undertaker. The pressure is on these three performers to make sure that Rocky isn't the only one whose star shines brightest...

...However, The Miz is still relatively a rasa tabula. If they somehow worked it so that he either won the match or lost in a style befitting Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 and then was put over by both Rocky and Cena afterwards, it could end up being a torch-passing in a much more meaningful sense. If the crowd that Rock likes sees that Miz is worthy in the eyes of The Great One and the same with Cena, then Miz might become that much bigger of a star. It could be dicey, especially given how much of a dick Miz has been up to this point, but then again, being a doucher doesn't seem to stop Randy Orton from getting cheered, does it?

That's the thing. While it was a satisfying end to the PPV for fans of The Rock, what does it do to keep those fans coming back after The Rock does an injury angle so he can go film his next movie? (Since he's gotta be back to wrestle at least one, if not two matches now, right? Right?) Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Cena got his comeuppance, but at the same time, he needed to get his comeuppance after the way he laid out Rocky. But Miz? He already got laid out by Rock on RAW. Let's take you through the progression of what happened to Miz last night:

• He kept his title on a technicality thanks to the double count-out
• The match gets restarted and he only beats Cena after Rock gives Cena the Rock Bottom
• Rocky lays out Miz and gives him a People's Elbow for his troubles.

I've grown to hate that kind of microanalytical dissection of heat and who gets over, but in this case, it's huge, especially for the crowd that the WWE NEEDED to impress. The point was that they had an opportunity for them to create a new star for the Rocky crowd, and they passed on it. Whatever spike they got for WrestleMania this year, if any, will not grow dividends for the company past any time that Rock decides he's leaving for any period of time. Furthermore, if he's not leaving for seven years at a time, he'll get old. I mean, remember when ratings started to slide the first time after they botched the WCW invasion? Rocky was around a lot then, and he couldn't save the ratings, buyrates and whatever other metrics people like to use.

Again, I hate using that argument anymore because why should I care about the minutiae of ratings? The thing is though, while the microanalysis is tedious, overall trends really are interesting to me. Why? Because I like this thing I call pro wrestling (no matter what Vince McMahon wants to call it) and I want it to stick around in a medium where I can view it without great personal cost to myself if at all possible. Creating new stars is a good way to do that, and really, if Vince McMahon wasn't going to do it, then maybe Miz and Cena should have gone into business for themselves and done it.

Think about it. That crowd HATED Cena yesterday. It was a perfect opportunity to do a double turn, even if it was only for one night, a la Rock/Hogan at X-8. If they flipped the script and changed it so that Miz worked face and Cena worked heel, that could have set up a situation where Rock screwing Cena out of the title would have been followed by a handshake or something other than a beatdown. Then Miz gets validation for one night from the Rock crowd, while at a later date, he gets validation from the Cena crowd, given that I still think turning Cena permanently is a disastrous idea given how he's the idol of the kids and does so much charity work etc. etc.

I know this is probably a lot of rambling for nothing, and I get that no matter how much shouting I do into the abyss (but not Abyss, because he'd shout incoherently right back, possibly with spittle), my cries will probably go unheeded. And it's a shame, because I'd like to think that I and the millions... AND MILLIONS of other like-minded fans out there who want to see something get shaken up and see a return to a more grounded product have a good idea of what we want to see.

Then again, how do I know what's good for me? Well, the WWE is probably going to have a rude awakening to that line of thought when the buzz they generated going into this WrestleMania is pissed away into fans tuning out again because they didn't give them another reason to stick around when Rock inevitably goes away again.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!