Lastly.
WWE legend The Rock made his shock return on the year-opening version of Monday Night time Uncooked, hinting one of many largest potential matches in wrestling is lastly on the playing cards.
However on the identical time, it creates as many questions because it solutions.
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After a couple of days hyping up the return of a former WWE champion, with many followers anticipating AEW wrestler and former WWE star Andrade to seem after his contract expired on December 31, the group was left underwhelmed by the looks of Jinder Mahal – a long-time jobber who had an terrible mid-2010s run with the World Heavyweight Title.
However this was, in fact, a traditional professional wrestling swerve with The Rock quickly interrupting Mahal to an unlimited ovation.
After going by means of his trademark phrases and beating down Mahal, The Rock turned his consideration to why he was actually again, simply in time for the height of the WWE calendar – the street to WrestleMania, which incorporates January’s Royal Rumble.
“I’m gonna go get one thing to eat,” he defined.
“Ought to The Rock sit in a sales space?
“Or ought to The Rock sit on the bar?
“Or ought to The Rock sit… on the head of the desk?”
This was a transparent pointer to a long-awaited match with long-time Undisputed WWE Common Champion Roman Reigns, who the corporate has been making an attempt to construct up as one of many all-time greats with a traditionally lengthy title reign.
His grip on the Common Championship (which was unified with the WWE title at WrestleMania 38) has lasted over 1200 days, placing him in putting distance of Hulk Hogan’s 1474-day reign between 1984 and 1988.
Reigns won’t ever catch the all-time chief, Bruno Sammartino, who held the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship for nearly eight years (until they actually go loopy), however surpassing Hogan together with Bob Backlund’s 1470-day reign (WWE doesn’t embody Japanese legend Antonio Inoki’s stint with the title or the following vacancies, thus crediting Backlund at 2135 days) is fully believable.
The issue, in fact, is a marathon title reign made sense again within the territory days of professional wrestling as a result of if the wrestler was nonetheless the highest draw, they deserved to carry the title. However in fashionable professional wrestling, the place titles will generally change fingers a number of instances in the identical evening, Reigns’ run is a wild exception.
His presentation as an unbeatable power – which is puzzling, since he retains needing interference to win his matches – has labored. He’s now a real needle-mover within the sport, after a long-time push as the great man head of the corporate changing John Cena by no means actually caught. And his Bloodline storyline has, at instances, been extremely sizzling (particularly in early 2023 with credit score to Sami Zayn and Cody Rhodes).
However fashionable storylines, with month-to-month premium dwell occasions, aren’t actually constructed to go this lengthy. And Reigns’ stint with the title has meant wrestlers like Rhodes, who appeared to have the proper story at 2023’s WrestleMania – crossing from AEW, being a super-hot babyface and successful the title his father by no means did – have as a substitute been left hanging.
WWE has even needed to create a brand new World Heavyweight Championship, received by Seth Rollins again in Might, to provide the opposite wrestlers a title they will really theoretically win. It’s onerous to purchase this title as a real world championship due to the Reigns issue – he’s clearly the highest man within the firm.
The query has all the time been, who will lastly finish Reigns’ historic reign? In any case, your complete level of constructing somebody up this strongly is for somebody to beat them to take their momentum – or in wrestling parlance, ‘get the rub’.
Rhodes made an entire lot of sense for the explanations talked about above, however as a substitute Reigns used interference to retain the title, in a stunning and considerably baffling outcome. With Reigns successfully now a part-time wrestler – he had simply 4 extra televised matches throughout all of 2023, two of them tag staff matches – it made the corporate’s prime title unaccessible.
It might have made all of the sense on the planet to provide Rhodes the title, so he might really defend it, whereas Reigns’ storyline continued over the title of ‘Head of the Desk’ and ‘Tribal Chief’, as a result of the character’s largest precedence is definitely respect. He has needed to cheat his method into holding his place, which is what makes him a foul man. It’s stolen valor. (Theoretically, anyway; once more, this story is muddled due to how followers react positively to Reigns, and the way the commentators constantly communicate of him as a dominant power.)
Reigns principally might have had the very same 2023, simply with out the world title. However as a substitute, he nonetheless holds it, and now heads into WrestleMania season with out an apparent opponent.
That’s the place The Rock is available in. For years, WWE has been eager to guide the legend towards Reigns, since he’s the true largest identify within the Samoan wrestling dynasty. Reigns couldn’t be the top of the desk till he knocked The Rock off the throne.
However The Rock is simply too profitable within the appearing world. Getting the day without work he must get into correct wrestling form has been an issue – and he’d be giving up loads of cash by committing to wrestling for a couple of months as a substitute of a movie.
Plus, the final time he had a correct match at 2013’s WrestleMania 29 he suffered main accidents (stomach and adductor tendons torn from his pelvis), delaying filming of the Hercules film and costing studio Paramount hundreds of thousands. That has made it very onerous for any studios to conform to letting him return.
However, it appears, the time has lastly come for the match to happen. The Rock wouldn’t have come out and made a really apparent allusion to wrestling Reigns if it wasn’t really going to occur – it will be a weird misdirection and disrespectful to the followers.
The plain place for the match is April’s WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia – the most important stage for the most important match. Reigns-Rock wouldn’t really assist WWE promote any tickets to this occasion, as a result of they’ve already nearly offered out each nights (roughly 57,000 tickets out with a set-up of 58,910, by way of WrestleTix), however WrestleMania all the time sells itself anyway.
There are two alternate options – the subsequent Saudi Arabia mega-show, since WWE all the time provides large matches to these occasions as a result of the Arab nation provides them a much bigger payday than any WrestleMania does, or the Elimination Chamber occasion on February 24 in Perth.
Australian followers would clearly love that choice, but it surely appears unlikely, given the present will begin at 4:30am American east coast time – so a lot of the firm’s dwelling followers wouldn’t be watching dwell anyway. Nonetheless, given the massive monetary dedication from Western Australia to lure the present, it’s potential. And The West Australian reported final month WA tourism officers had requested concerning the possibilities of getting The Rock for the Elimination Chamber present.
It’s additionally a brand new period for WWE, now united with UFC beneath the TKO model, with the corporate prioritising promoting large exhibits to cities world wide (like Elimination Chamber: Perth) to lift earnings and thus the inventory value. In addition they don’t must promote subscriptions, like they did for the WWE Community, or conventional pay per views, as a result of within the US (the place they get most of their cash) the NBC-owned streaming service Peacock already paid for all of their premium dwell occasions.
WWE not operates within the conventional ‘get followers to pay to see X occasion as a result of it’s how we make cash’ mannequin – it’s ‘construct the model and get more cash subsequent time the TV and PLE rights offers are in the marketplace’. For instance, for the time being the rights to Monday Night time Uncooked are up for grabs within the US, so constructing the Uncooked scores are the present precedence.
The profit to not holding Reigns-Rock at WrestleMania could be Reigns can wrestle another person on the occasion. Somebody like Cody Rhodes, who wants to really beat Reigns to ‘end the story’ – The Rock, aged 51 and seemingly about to wrestle for the primary time in a decade, doesn’t must be WWE Champion (particularly since he’d then need to wrestle once more to lose the title) and definitely doesn’t want the rub.
There aren’t any simple solutions. If Reigns-Rock occurs pre-WrestleMania, Reigns can lose the title at WM40, however then he received’t set the trendy file by beating the size of Hogan’s reign. If Reigns-Rock occurs at WM40, he can maintain onto the title for one more yr and surpass Hogan, however then WWE has to spend one other yr stretching out his story – and already many followers are getting a bit uninterested in it.
We haven’t even talked about CM Punk, who has already confirmed to be a real scores and ticket-mover since returning to WWE at Survivor Collection. He’s successfully one other part-timer and might lastly essential occasion a WrestleMania by showing on the Saturday present whereas Reigns-Rock headlines on Sunday, but when he’s the most important star on the present (which, based mostly on the numbers we’ve seen during the last month, he’s) absolutely he must go for the highest belt?
However a minimum of the match we’ve been ready years for lastly appears to be taking place. And, as talked about earlier than, it’s maybe the most important factor WWE might presumably guide proper now.
So that you’re effectively inside your rights to simply be very bloody excited.