I'm going to play Devil's Advocate for a second here. I'm not a fan of the no balls-Fruity Pebbles-haha gay gay gay gay shit that Rock is peddling as his main talking point here. However, wrestling is so far behind what popular culture is, or it's tapped into a vein of popular culture where that kind of thing isn't so much taboo as it is a major talking point. Go to any sporting event, any tailgate, any place where macho men (not Randy Savage) gather, and you're going to hear the same things Rock is talking about. It works for that crowd, and that crowd ate it up, so much to the point where liberal-minded people such as myself are going to cringe at it. That's not why the final promo didn't work.
The fact that Rocky entered The Reality Era isn't the reason either. Rocky not speaking in the first person, being stripped down, he's charismatic enough to get across his point, which, when he wasn't going all HAHA GAY GAY GAY, was compelling at least. We need to step back and take a look at what each guy represents here. John Cena represents what he thinks the fans want, someone who sticks around and entertains them. Rock fights for what the fans really want, but where the promo went bad? Yeah, Rock got away from what made him great. He gave the fans way too much, and it was just too much of this trending on Twitter, and that is what the fans are chanting. Hey, look at you guys, you guys are all cute and shit! Yay fans! Yay Rock!
Even if the live crowd ate that shit up (and live crowds are way different than TV audiences), it's not what they're paying Rock to come back and do. I don't care if he does the catchphrases or not, it should be Rock dominating the segment, not Rock giving a kernel and the crowd running with the rest of it. You know those live cuts of songs where the band lets the crowd sing the chorus? Yeah, I fucking hate that. I don't wanna hear 10,000 people sing off key and off microphone. I want to hear Eddie Vedder or Tom Petty sing. And like that, I want to hear The Rock.
That's what made Cena's response so much better. It was succinct. It was focused. It wasn't pandering. And hell, he diffused all the troll arguments that Rock made to him by accepting them sarcastically and denoting purpose. People want to rag on Cena all they want, but that's why he's a professional. That's why he's one of the best. When Rock is out there letting the crowd dictate his pace (and for all we know that was on purpose, although when Cena left, Rocky was clearly flustered), Cena is the counterbalance, and even if he's not the guy the fans want, he's the guy the fans deserve. It's how good wrestling television should work in theory.
However, that was only twenty minutes out of a show that ran 140. The rest of the show, the recap of the Eve bullshit from last week, was actually really decent. The beginning of the show was actually fucking awesome and totally dwarfed the impact of the last twenty. Chris Jericho and CM Punk just showed everyone how it was done on the mic, then Punk and Daniel Bryan (and AJ even) showed everyone how it was done in the ring. Then, afterwards, they tied together three different stories for the next month or so. It was a great bit of storytelling and wrestling. The Miz shone too on the mic and in the ring with Cena. Hell, that Miz short DDT on Cena was impressive on both ends and worth the price of admission (which for us was free... go fig).
Overall, a weird RAW, but enjoyable on the whole. Still, I can't help but feel that The Rock, of all people, needs to be focused more. Then again, maybe he doesn't. Maybe the point is that he's Hollywood and meandering and lost in his star power, while Cena is the wrestler. If that's the case, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out until WrestleMania.
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