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The Specialists
Key Moment of the Week: The Rock Returns to the WWE (Finally) Oct 5, 2009 - 1:57:52 PM
Is there one man who can cause an upturn in the WWE's fortunes? John Cena certainly thinks so. His challenges to The Rock in the media have escalated to an almost embarrassing level, receiving little or no response in return. While the grandstand challenges make a man who is one of the top stars in the company look unbelievably small-time, it is not difficult to see where he is coming from if he is speaking purely as a wrestling fan.
The Rock has certainly been an inspiration for John Cena, whose promos occasionally make him sound like a poor tribute act, and on the evidence of Friday night's episode of Smackdown it is easy to see why. The Rock cut the best babyface promo of the year so far, eliciting a response from the audience that was made even more impressive by the fact that the segment was pre-recorded and. There is no one who can match The Rock in terms of charisma and promo delivery currently active in the industry. Of course John Cena has a charisma of his own, but week after week he is saddled with subpar material. He is presented as this generation's version of The Rock, but lacks the creativity and innovation of Dwayne Johnson.
At the start of the segment on Friday night, The Rock threw away a script. The action was symbolic in that during his era the performers were given bullet points rather than pages of lines to recite, and emphasised that he came up with much of the material that made him famous.
The quality of the promo was excellent, especially considering that The Rock has been out of wrestling for so long. He brought out all the old catchphrases, and showed a great understanding of the crowd reaction he would receive despite not being in the arena. CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler were both mentioned by The Rock, but in a way that put them over in contrast to the way that Legacy were buried by D-Generation X on Monday night. The Rock also did an excellent job of putting over The Undertaker via self deprecating humour.
More interesting was his suggestion that he could be the guest host of Raw. I've made my feelings about the celebrity hosts abundantly clear in previous columns, but it seems that the guest host concept is tailor made for The Rock. The WWE's PG direction means that his attempts to establish himself as a lead in top childrens movies are likely to be strengthened rather than tarnished. He would be able to plug his movie to his hearts content, while putting over some of the younger talent on the microphone. A strong relationship between Dwayne Johnson and the WWE is win-win for everyone involved.
If an agreement is reached, then the WWE should start promoting The Rock edition of Monday Night Raw weeks in advance, possibly using him on one of the three hour shows. As wrestling on television has become so overexposed over recent years there are not many scenarios which would guarantee a ratings increase, but a heavily promoted return of The Rock would be a genuine incentive for casual and long-time fans alike to tune in.
The guest host position would be ideal for The Rock, who would benefit from a captive audience to which he could promote his movies. In return, the WWE would get a guest host who would greatly enhance the quality of Raw.
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