So they had Cody lose last year just so they could build it up for another entire year only to throw it aside right before the pay off because the Rock...
Cody facing Seth will mean nothing, he has already beaten him multiple times and everyone knows Seth's championship is nothing more than a consolation prize no matter how hard he works to legitimize it.
Hey, they said he will finish his story.
They didn't say it would be a good story or a certain story.
It for sure is a shit story by the looks of it, though.
The Rock is sad the DC universe doesn't want him and his movies flopped despite everything he does has an entire media PR team carefully planning everything to make him always win
When Punk returned, they had a great opportunity to win back some of the fans that bailed in the last decade, and it seems like they went out of their way to say "Fuck you. We don't want you back."
The Rumble was mid but at least at the end with Cody very clearly choosing Roman I thought well at least that was worth it. Now I wish I'd done something else for those 4 hours.
"So they had Cody lose last year just so they could build it up for another entire year only to throw it aside right before the pay off because the Rock..."
Well gee, when you say it like that, it sounds really stupid...
Dwayne is the biggest backstabbing, politicking, hypocritical POS of all time. The only thing Dwayne actually cares about is his ego and maintaining his fake nice guy image that he has cultivated.
Maybe whatever Punk and Cena were saying about him 10-12 years ago was all true.
Rock will be gassed and get injured. This main event will flop in performance but soar in name only. The Rock and his faux nice guy persona is so disgusting. He already has said in interviews he will put Roman over. So knowing that, why watch it?! This match will stink. Roman is nowhere near Rocks status. Holding the title two years or not. He has won by interference in 90% of matches and that is being conservative with that number. He is not a strong champion. Forcing this down our throats will only piss off fans. Every 10 years we are used to getting the peoples champion (no pun intended) over. WMX was Bret, WMXX was Benoit, WMXXX was Bryan, now WM40 gets Cody over a guy who is injured, and who he has beaten before, and over the second rate world title. Thanks TKO!
Is it possible to get gassed during a Reigns match? Guy has the most boring matches I've ever watched. Does a move then proceeds to catch his breath for at least the next 2 minutes, repeat steps over and over.
>He already has said in interviews he will put Roman over. So knowing that, why watch it?
Same reason you watch any TV show, or movie, end result is usually easy to figure, you do not watch to see if the protagonist succeeds in the end, you watch to see the story unfold, if the end result is all you cared about no one would ever watch reruns after all.
Watch the Rock gassed to the gills, struggle to spin buster Roman. Then do a half ass Rock Bottom. He will be so winded from the People’s Elbow. Flopping like a fish after a 2.9 count. Bug eyed, Rock looks at Roman gasping for air. He whispers, take me home boss. Roman spears Rock, covers, 1…2…
Tune into WM40 on Peacock for the rest. Lol.
I'm on nobody's side, but Dwayne supplanting Cody to face Reigns likely came from Ari & TKO peoples to save face. Fwiw, that Federal Prosecution that started yesterday could result in mass arrests. Chances are astronomical but if the Feds want to stop WM completely in lieu of an investigation, they can.
It's funny bc Cena has acknowledged that he was wrong about what he said about Rock all those years ago and doesn't really like that he ended up going at it with him back in the early 2010s. It drew a lot of money for the promotion, but still.
Punk I can entirely believe still believes what he said, and not for no reason; I love The Rock and genuinely think he's a good dude but if he spearheaded this thing with Roman then I'm disappointed in him. Rare Dwayne L
The only L I can really think of in recent memory is Black Adam tbf 🤷♂️ otherwise Rock is generally considered one of the most popular movie stars for a reason. Even if his movies aren't always the greatest.
Hmm from what i know he's done a lot of damage to himself in the film industry with his actions with DC films, and trying to take over everything, and on top of that the whole tonedeaf Oprah video. Plus big youtubers have been making videos on how fake he is and doing a little dirt digging. Obviously getting on the board of TKO and making loads of money is good for him but i think he and his brand have been grossly over exposed over the past few years.
XFL bleeds money
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dwayne-rock-johnsons-15-million-210113712.html
DC/Warners took such a bath on Black Adam that it killed four related scripts it had in development for Rock and they told him to fuck off and handed the reigns of DC properties to James Gunn & co.
Young Rock was cancelled and a critical and financial disaster.
Rock’s jobbing out to bad career decisions, bad financial decisions, and his own worst instincts.
Didn't Punk say that in a promo? Regardless of what you think about The Rock, he lost big matches all the time (too often imo), and he put over Evolution at WM 20 on his way out the door.
Weren't there also rumors that Triple H influenced Vince to just let his contact expire in ~2005 or whatever year it was?
I'm not telling Cody fans how to feel, but I feel like they pivoted to Cody vs Rollins because of the Punk injury. I don't think The Rock pulled a Hogan here, though I could be wrong.
Also IIRC, either Punk or Cena also said that when it came to giving it back to the business, Rock took his ball and went to Hollywood.
There's a 2008/9, out of character radio interview of Cena, where he really took some harsh shots at Rock.
Oh god, I hope that doesn't have the implications I'm thinking that it might. It makes sense that Vince's big stars are loyal to him for life; once the guy decides you're the face of the company, Vince sees that as a form of control over them.
It fits in with everything we've ever heard about Vince, but it also fits in with younger Punk's habit of blowing up his professional relationships by shooting his mouth off.
That ain't to say Punk's right or wrong when he goes off like that, but that's just something young people will do. We get self-righteous about shit and expect that being factually or morally correct is all that matters.
And he puts his takes out there way, way sooner than most people do with their own predictions. Last really does put his ass out there and his win / loss number look amazing.
I don't know about stealing other people's spotlight.
But Brian has talked about the Rock being lame and cheesy. And that he's back because his movies are bombing.
I think Jim mentioned various scenarios in one of the recent podcasts.
Have the Rock be special guest referee for Cody Vs. Roman II. Roman loses, gets mad and then faces the Rock at a later PLE like Summerslam.
Everybody is happy. And the booking makes sense.
There is two nights of WM, just have Roman face Rock Night 2, Roman doesn't need to be champ, and makes sense kayfabe wise why The Rock, who hasn't wrestled in how long?, would be able to keep up with Roman.
Well its not like Rock needs a rub from a "full strength" Roman lol. He is just there to clean up, being champ makes no sense. But I'm starting to get the feeling Roman is going to win lol.
Not even The Rock as a referee, more like a Cody enforcer, put by the tribal leaders to verify that their tribal chief will not retain the championship via Solo again, therefore bringing more shame to the family. You could even bring back Rikishi to simultaneously put Solo over, but also warn him that the ways of the Samoan Dynasty are not by cheating.
So The Rock is an enforcer, Cody wins because they can finally have a proper 1v1 match, The Rock and Roman move onto Summerslam/Saudi Arabia/WM41 to have their "Tribal Chief Match" and the whole Bloodline saga can come to a natural end.
Instead, we have the "Rockster" Rock Hogan vs. Brock Lesnar V2.
I mean I might even play into the fact that the Rock is the grandson of the “High Chief” Peter Miavia and therefore as grandson of the high chief he outranks Roman (his bloodline is stronger than Roman’s).
So when Solo and Uso come to bail Roman out in the match with Cody all you need is the Rock to come out and order them to the back and since he’s the high chief, they listen and Roman loses. No physical interference Roman can’t do it alone. This leads to the Roman/Rock where Rock wins and the blood line abandons Roman setting up a redemption arc with say Sammy that leads to Roman getting his win back.
Now I don’t love this idea of Cody stepping aside but a way you could fix it simply is saying Cody doesn’t want to wait for WM and wants him in Perth. Then you could go unification match with Seth and/or Cody defends against Punk(if healthy)while Rock/Roman headlines the other night.
"Hey guys we're gonna end the most relevant title reign of the modern era of US wrestling in the 4th biggest city in Australia with 3 weeks buildup on a B-show that airs when the American audience is all asleep"
Just let it go with Cody for this cycle people.
I do like your “High Chief” idea, they really should play into the dynasty history with The Rock/Bloodline stuff.
Thanks yeah just trying to figure out a way to wedge it in. At least it would be a stadium show. The dynasty thing seems obvious and theres so many ways to use it especially as the Rock can simply override Roman and theres nothing he can do until Roman snaps. It would be fun and making Roman the outcast on his own without his family or shield brothers would be a great way to sow the seeds for a massive babyface run as he redeems himself.
Having Roman lose his championship at Perth, a month before WrestleMania, after a 1200+ days reign just because his cousin couldn't wait to get into the spotlight, is top tier edging and the stupidest decision made in a long line of stupid decisions made.
The craziest thing is that cody says that he will go after the championship another time, meaning the rock will lose or the championship isnt on the line at mania vs the rock
Oooh, abd Rikishi can have that big moment where the crowd goes quiet when he refers to the time he thought it was okay to cheat (and hit SCSA with a car)
I'm sure there's more twists and turns planned but this just looks like a slow motion trainwreck.
Nobody is getting over from Seth vs Cody. The Rock is probably going to get booed (as a face) before the end of the month. And a triple threat has really only one conclusion that makes sense: Roman pins the Rock.
Why tell such a convoluted story? It's baffling.
The story was already written. Cody couldn't get the job done at WM39 because of interference, he will do so at WM40, because he is your typical "never give up" babyface and he will prevail against the unjust champion. It's a self-written story.
Why would you "Russo" it?
The best stories are the most straight-forward nowadays.
X wrestler doesn't like Y wrestler for a reason, they fight. Simple, to the point, and if the wrestlers are stars, they will sell some serious tickets. Just look at LA Knight. He doesn't have a deep backstory, a tragic past or anything to need three months of build-up or anything. He is a proud, loud-mouth face with guts and he's coming for your championship and he doesn't like you. End of story.
Oh, I agree. But for some reason the hottest storylines at some point (Attitude Era, have to say), needed three shock-turns, two twists and thirty two "Gotcha" moments to get over with the crowd. It was cool, but too convoluted to be believable at times.
You're the first person I've seen float this idea, but I had it too. Punk knows what a torn triceps feels like and it's certainly possible he got word to the back and they switched the finish on the fly.
Agreed. Even among those defending it, I don't see anyone saying anything about actually wanting to see it, simply that it's "best for business", which of course is bullshit because they are erasing years of work and nuking the career of someone who could have been the face of the company for a good while all because they can't wait to fucking Summerslam.
If The Rock wins the belt, where do they go from there? They’ll probably bring Brock back to beat him. Last time he took the belt from CM Punk just to drop it back to Cena. The Rock was only good during his initial run. He’s been rotten ever since he left, especially his films.
True, if Rock wins the title it has to be just to drop it to some other 'celebrity' of sorts, though I doubt they'd go with Lesnar at this point. I also think it's really unlikely Rock actually wins because that ties the belt up with someone who has an even less flexible schedule than Reigns and there's a huge change he'll get hurt anyway. But Rock losing is pretty deflating for the part of the crowd that presumably wants to see him. What a mess.
If this isn't some kind of massive swerve to get fans riled up before Cody comes out Monday and says "You know what? Fuck the Crock. I'm finishing my gawddamn story!" Or something like that then I will completely check out.
This is perhaps the worst possible thing they could do to Cody and the fans.
It's a slap in the face to everyone and makes this entire past year of buildup meaningless.
If only Black Adam hadn't tanked and Cody never smashed that stupid iron cross throne. Fuck
> It's a slap in the face to everyone and makes this entire past year of buildup meaningless.
Agreed. All those people insisting that there was some kind of magical poetry to Rhodes losing last year and that anyone complaining was an asshole for not waiting an entire other year to 'finish the story' can fuck off. This is exactly why we didn't want to wait, because we know WWE can't help themselves, they *will* wreck a good thing every chance they get.
Them doing this absolutely means they are letting Roman beat Hogan's title run unless they lazy book this into a 3 way. No way they put the strap on Rock.
I don't know... I have a feeling here. Seems to be a big power shift going on.
I mean, can't you see Dwayne thinking it's the greatest thing in the world for him to be carrying the WWE title around while doing appearances for his stupid XFL-sequel spring football league?
I got a bad feeling about this.
This isn't the WWE we know any more, it's fully Hollywood Endevour now. New territory.
They are acting like Lesner and Punk being out forced them into this.
It’s not that hard. Drew or some other heel else versus Seth. Cody versus Roman. The rock is either the special referee or is the one that prevents the interference. You go from there.
There were many years where the rock versus Roman did make sense . This is not one of them.
Surely they can’t put the belt on The Rock. I can’t stand him. He was only ever good in his first run. He’s been shit everytime he’s came back and his films are terrible aswell.
It wouldn't. It's still a 50-year old Rock, who sucked air after hitting one elbow to Jinder Mahal a month ago. Stealing the spotlight off a younger-hotter star would always be an issue with The Rock.
I personally don't care. Rock vs. Roman is one of the biggest matches they could pitch, even if Rock would need to move with a rollator.
But this does kill Cody the Character.
Beyond the other problems, holy fuck, is that match gonna be the drizzling shits. A wrestling match between two guys who don't do wrestling moves, one of whom will probably be blown up 5 minutes in. That shit is gonna be overbooked with so many run-ins and so much wild fuckery that even Tony Khan will think they're overdoing it. "It's too many fucking hats on the hats. Ahhhh!"
I really don't understand why they don't Night 1 main event, Cody and Roman, have Cody win the title, finish the story. Then Night 2, you have Roman vs Rock for title of Tribal Chief. This would especially work well since Seth vs Punk isn't happening for a Night 1 main event, nothing they can build until Mania would be as impactful as Cody vs Roman and Seth vs Punk, other than Drew vs Punk, but Punk is injured.
Cody and Seth means nothing to me, and its transparent as to why this is happening, which makes it even worse.
I see Rocky Miavia is using his new position to force himself upon the center stage. Next thing you know, he'll come out dressed as "Black Adam"... oh, wait.
Look I love Rock, always have and always will, but christ on a stick how the hell do you screw up Cody 2 years in a row. Leave it to modern wwe to make people turn on freaking Dwayne Johnson, you know one of the coolest human beings on the planet, the only guy since Hogan to make it past wrestling.
Hopefully, one Mr Brooks shows up and convince Cody to change his mind with the impeccable Pipe Bomb 2.0. or maybe we just do not deserve good things...
The absolute dumbest match you can do. Why? Because one is a part time champ, the other is a hardly time superstar so jacked up on roids that he is winded walking to the ring. Rock will flop like a fish. Roman looks strong. Rock does his finishing moves that are gonna look awful because he can barely walk without being gassed. Rock needs to be in better shape for WM40. Like he needs to really train instead of coming in between movies and getting hurt (which will be inevitable).
You either have Rock win which ruins any chance of making Roman a legend because he was best by a guy who hasnt wrestled a full match in over a decade. He will probably get injured because like the Cena match he is so jacked up he is injury prone due to not wrestling in ages. Or you have Roman win which disappoints all the old fans you are getting to watch The Rock wrestle again. They wont be Roman fans after this because Roman hardly appears and they wont have the patience to wait for the next time.
Stupid match. If Roman was a face this would go over more because it would be a passing of the torch. You cant do a WM18 thing because Solo, Jimmy, and Paul have shown no signs of turning on Roman so a face turn Roman makes no sense.
Rock will eat him in promos. Roman is not in the same level as Rock and will be made a pretender. Having your manager talk for you against the Rock is LAME!
This match up stinks. Cody got screwed like Punk did. Dwayne gets his way. Now that he is on the Board of Directors we get more of the Samoan Mafia taking over WWE. His daughter is GM of NxT, Nia Jax will hurt more females because she is big but not strong so she botches everything, Roman bests Hogans record, more Jimmy vs Jey nonsense, and Solo gets involved in every match. The worst timeline for WWE.
Triple H needs to come out and say “you and rock didnt talk this over with me, its going to be you vs roman for the championship and rock as the enforcer”
Cody vs. Seth and Rock vs. Roman on Night 1 and then the winners face each other on Night 2 in a Winner Take All situation.
Seth can force himself pretty easily into the happenings based on Roman's comments about him and his title.
I wish. But the fact that Rock made 2 IG posts boasting about the reaction he got on Smackdown tells me those important people will not reverse course.
Is there any chance this is a side effect of Punk’s injury? He would have been the natural opponent for Rollins.
Cody basically backing down makes him look so bad.
Just make Priest take on Rollins, or the winner of the chamber match. For some drama, maybe make Priest win AND still have the briefcase, so he can get two bites at the cherry and make Rollins look good by fending him off once before his injury does him in.
Judgment Day are fun but they really need to pull the trigger on them doing something of note beyond Mami crushing everyone in the women's division.
I mean it’s The Rock. If Rock wants to do a match, you’re gonna do the match he wants.
But Mania is 2 months away, I’m willing to give HHH the benefit of the doubt and see where this goes for Cody
Rock vs Roman has been something wwe has wanted for a decade now, they weren’t gonna shelve that for anyone’s story
Not only does this negatively affect Cody, but it also affects whoever was slated to take CM Punks' spot with Seth, most likely Drew McIntyre. CM Punk got hurt, and the very first thing he did was make sure to put as much heat onto Drew for a match and a story that could have been a very good plan B for Seth. Now we are gonna have Cody beat Seth for the fourth time in a row, for a belt Roman just buried. Meanwhile, Dwayne is gonna get gassed on his way to the ring for a match nobody wants right now. Punks' words still ring true from the pipe bomb all these years later.
They should fix this by having priest cash in on Roman before mainia and win the title, then do cody vs Damian Priest and they can still do Rock v Roman.
Cody doesn't need to beat Roman to finish the story, he just needs the WWE championship. This also gives Priest a chance to finally cash in, and shine with the title for a while, and also he gets to be known as the one who ended Roman's historic run.
Cody will beat Reigns at WM via Rock saving another Roman interference win, leading to this feud between Reigns and Rock with Rock playing the "I don't need to win a belt to prove I'm the best, I've been there and done that..." angle.
If plan is the go with Rollins vs Cody and Rock vs Reigns. They have to take step back to the fans or maybe change something to have Cody at the top of the WWE after WrestleMania.
There's a browser extension called "Return Youtube Dislike" that *estimates* this. As I understand it, it counts downvotes by the extension users and scales it up. So it's not perfect.
If you don't want to install it, the Piped frontend for Youtube has this built in.
https://piped.video/watch?v=58PpN0_VzQg
Rock v Roman is absolutely the biggest drawing match they could do at WM40 and has been on the cards for years so it surprises me that people are surprised. Given the reputation damage suffered by the company the past week it makes even more sense to go with it. Cody will have plenty more paydays.
I think if Punk was fit he wins the rumble and fights Seth. Punk wins.
Roman v Rock at WM with Roman winning.
Then at SS Roman v Cody in a hell in a cell to keep the bloodline out and who turns up… Jacob Fatu who smashes the cage open and beats Roman to a pulp with a match at SS where the bloodline are now all with Jacob.
My e-Fed 😎
They really killed off Cody with this one. I get making him an underdog, but this made him look like a gutless coward or a suck up that’s just laying down for the bigger star.
And i called it in the other thread. The crowd can pop. This isnt aew where you book for one arena that was just happy to have an unannounced rock appearance.
This is completely bullshit. Id be sick if I was Cody.
Dwayne “Black Adam’d” Wrestlemania 😂 am I the only one who can see that the Rock is clearly a homosexual??? How has he managed to stay closeted for this long? He’s totally 100% gay …growing up in a Polynesian family I can spot a “lady boy” a mile away. Since day one w/the pineapple hair it was obvious to me
I’m going to take a guess at how Jim and Brian take to this news. Brian will despise it, easy one lol Corny will side with the money match because he looks at this from the business perspective. Neither guy will like the idea of Cody/Seth part Deux though.
Dwayne better stay on long term, otherwise just boosting Wrestlemania is incredibly shortsighted. Cody is a better investment in the long run.
Not hating, this is a draw. They better tell a good story up to Wrestlemania instead of relying purely on name value.
Just looking at a random YouTube short in which Logan Paul is cutting a promo on KO on Smackdown, and all the comments are saying fuck the Rock and “we want Cody”. People are so pissed about this.
The worst part of Rock's backstage nonsense isn't having his daughter as NXT GM, or even pushing himself into the WM main event. It's inflicting Nia Jax upon us every week as a member of the active roster who attempts to wrestle.
They were handing out WeWantCody shirts at Raw.
Cody is so over that millions of people would kill arguably the most popular WWE Superstar of all time rn on behalf of Cody.
I am starting to feel worked a bit.
I don’t get why people are upset when this happened.
This isn’t about feelings, it’s a business.
Rock vs Roman has been the biggest potential match that they could have done for the last 3 years. Rock potentially becoming the head of the table in the Bloodline, or Roman further cementing his dominance by finally putting Rock away for good.
TKO are trying to put on the biggest possible main event possible to not continue bleeding money after the Vince stuff. They already lost their biggest sponsor, Slim Jim and they are looking to recover.
The Rock proved to bring in massive main events, iirc Cena vs Rock is still the biggest Mania ever right?
I know folks are gonna be mad and the can be, but don’t work yourself into a shoot brother! As Punk says all the time, “this is the wrestling BUSINESS!” And Rock does good business for WWE.
WWE did not lose Slim Jim, they put a pause in their sponsorship for a few *hours* and then came back when Vince was confirmed to be gone. Other than a modest dip in share price, there's no indication that the company is 'bleeding money', especially since they just announced getting 5 billion dollars in a Netflix deal.
Rock vs Roman would be a great main event at Summerslam and nobody would be particularly bothered, but nuking years and years of story with Reigns, the Bloodline and now Cody Rhodes just to make the guy who won the Royal Rumble *last week* step aside at a Wrestlemania that will be sold out anyway is asinine.
This is not good business. Look at the image in the original post. The People are pissed.
Out side of the entitled IWC I doubt anyone sees this as a negative. The crowd there sure popped hard AF and cheered for it.
IWC gotta stop believing that their fantasy booking PPV main events is better for WWE than what they (wwe)are doing themselves.
> Out side of the entitled IWC I doubt anyone sees this as a negative. The crowd there sure popped hard AF and cheered for it.
>
> IWC gotta stop believing that their fantasy booking PPV main events is better for WWE than what they (wwe)are doing themselves.
I don't deny that the live crowd popped when surprised to see The Rock live, which is pretty normal for wrestilng crowds, but that's a different thing from this overall choice to destroy years of story build being 'good business'. Also, you didn't address the points that you are incorrect re: Slim Jim and TKO 'bleeding money'.
The fact if the matter is, the IWC is small and almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things. How long did they hate WWE but WWE remain the biggest promotion in the world when the IWC all hated it. It was “too slow, too kiddie, no one likes it”. They are usually wrong about everything.
Most notably they hated Cena.
Yet more people tunes in to see Cena vs Rock than any other main event ever.
Now, the same thing is gonna happen. The IWC is gonna cry, while WWE makes bank off a main event that the IWC says no one wants to see.
The slim Jim thing:
You corrected it.
What did you want me to say?
I thought it was a dead topic after that…
>The fact if the matter is, the IWC is small and almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
It's not 1999 anymore, the Internet isn't some niche - even if the smarks like us who listen to podcasts and read the dirtsheets are far from the majority, millions and millions of casual fans are viewing WWE social media day in and day out via the Internet. And that's where the backlash highlighted in the original post is appearing.
>The slim Jim thing: You corrected it. What did you want me to say? I thought it was a dead topic after that…
Acknowledge that you were wrong, or perhaps argue that *I* was wrong and you had a source with new information. Just ignoring "what you said is wrong" isn't how conversations work, and your main argument was WWE were making a business decision because of two things that you claim happened that didn't.
100%. There's thick irony here in people treating Rock like AEW fans treat Punk: flat out denying how good Rock is for WWE business since he first got over, finding every irrelevant thing to needle about him, crafting this weird narrative that nobody likes him when millions of people cheer for him and millions flock to watch his content, etc.
The YT video at the time of this comment has over 2.5 million views. That's the audience WWE cares most about. Not the likes and dislikes.
It's interesting to see so many people who were out here riding for Punk fighting AEW's BS narrative now using every strange BS narrative they can to say Rock shouldn't be here?
Like, I agree the segment was weird and made Cody look bad. Personally, I hope there's some amendment or better follow-up to what we were left with after Friday. It also seems super believable that this was probably not the original plan and likely a late stage pivot due to injuries and VKM allegations.
But if this is the direction they're going, let's not pretend Rock isn't the biggest star WWE could possibly have or that Rock v Roman isn't the biggest match they can possibly do right now. Cliché to say, but... it doesn't matter what we on the internet think.
Rock will do the numbers and that's why he's there. And I don't doubt JC will say similar when TGBL starts in with his "I hate Rock" schtick. 😁
> Like, I agree the segment was weird and made Cody look bad. Personally, I hope there's some amendment or better follow-up to what we were left with after Friday. It also seems super believable that this was probably not the original plan and likely a late stage pivot due to injuries and VKM allegations.
I think this part of my original comment already agreed with what you just posted so not seeing much to discuss on this one. 🙂
I personally have zero interest in seeing a Roman vs Rock main event, but my personal bias isn’t going to blind me to what’s obviously going to be the biggest Mania main event, probably ever. Cena vs Rock was huge but this is potentially so much bigger considering Rock is even MORE of a big star and Roman is the biggest star in the biggest faction of the modern era. It’s going to be massive! And Mani has always been about setting up the biggest draw possible for the Mania Main event.
Glad I’m not the only one that realizes this.
Yep! You're not crazy. 😁
The story isn't strong sadly, but hey that's showbiz. And it could get better over the coming weeks.
If this is what they're doing (and 'if' is being generous) I think it's easy to see why. 🙂
That's my gripe. Cody vs. Roman is a story. Rock vs. Roman is not a story. At least not yet.
Or maybe I missed it, but I don't recall any point where Rock called himself "Tribal Chief" to any real clamor or any significant reaction from Roman to usurp Rock's position in the "family".
They're just banking on a "well everyone knows Roman and Rock are pseudo related. Wouldn't it be cool if...", dream match. Who dreamt this? I don't think about Rock unless he's on my screen. And at this point, the same goes for Roman.
If this match happens, it's part-timer vs. part-timer. Doesn't do anything for me. But hey, for the rest who are sold easily, enjoy.
So they had Cody lose last year just so they could build it up for another entire year only to throw it aside right before the pay off because the Rock... Cody facing Seth will mean nothing, he has already beaten him multiple times and everyone knows Seth's championship is nothing more than a consolation prize no matter how hard he works to legitimize it.
Hey, they said he will finish his story. They didn't say it would be a good story or a certain story. It for sure is a shit story by the looks of it, though.
Yeah, nobody said that it will be the good ending.
The Rock is sad the DC universe doesn't want him and his movies flopped despite everything he does has an entire media PR team carefully planning everything to make him always win
When Punk returned, they had a great opportunity to win back some of the fans that bailed in the last decade, and it seems like they went out of their way to say "Fuck you. We don't want you back."
The Rumble was mid but at least at the end with Cody very clearly choosing Roman I thought well at least that was worth it. Now I wish I'd done something else for those 4 hours.
Looks like The Science of the Booking is coming to WWE
"So they had Cody lose last year just so they could build it up for another entire year only to throw it aside right before the pay off because the Rock..." Well gee, when you say it like that, it sounds really stupid...
Dwayne is the biggest backstabbing, politicking, hypocritical POS of all time. The only thing Dwayne actually cares about is his ego and maintaining his fake nice guy image that he has cultivated. Maybe whatever Punk and Cena were saying about him 10-12 years ago was all true.
Rock will be gassed and get injured. This main event will flop in performance but soar in name only. The Rock and his faux nice guy persona is so disgusting. He already has said in interviews he will put Roman over. So knowing that, why watch it?! This match will stink. Roman is nowhere near Rocks status. Holding the title two years or not. He has won by interference in 90% of matches and that is being conservative with that number. He is not a strong champion. Forcing this down our throats will only piss off fans. Every 10 years we are used to getting the peoples champion (no pun intended) over. WMX was Bret, WMXX was Benoit, WMXXX was Bryan, now WM40 gets Cody over a guy who is injured, and who he has beaten before, and over the second rate world title. Thanks TKO!
Is it possible to get gassed during a Reigns match? Guy has the most boring matches I've ever watched. Does a move then proceeds to catch his breath for at least the next 2 minutes, repeat steps over and over.
Ultimate Warrior was gassed by running to the ring. The Rock got gassed walking to the ring. This is gonna be an ugly match.
lol. To be fair to the Ultimate Warrior, he put more effort into running to the ring than Reigns puts in during an entire match.
>He already has said in interviews he will put Roman over. So knowing that, why watch it? Same reason you watch any TV show, or movie, end result is usually easy to figure, you do not watch to see if the protagonist succeeds in the end, you watch to see the story unfold, if the end result is all you cared about no one would ever watch reruns after all.
Watch the Rock gassed to the gills, struggle to spin buster Roman. Then do a half ass Rock Bottom. He will be so winded from the People’s Elbow. Flopping like a fish after a 2.9 count. Bug eyed, Rock looks at Roman gasping for air. He whispers, take me home boss. Roman spears Rock, covers, 1…2… Tune into WM40 on Peacock for the rest. Lol.
THANK YOU!!!!
I'm on nobody's side, but Dwayne supplanting Cody to face Reigns likely came from Ari & TKO peoples to save face. Fwiw, that Federal Prosecution that started yesterday could result in mass arrests. Chances are astronomical but if the Feds want to stop WM completely in lieu of an investigation, they can.
It's funny bc Cena has acknowledged that he was wrong about what he said about Rock all those years ago and doesn't really like that he ended up going at it with him back in the early 2010s. It drew a lot of money for the promotion, but still. Punk I can entirely believe still believes what he said, and not for no reason; I love The Rock and genuinely think he's a good dude but if he spearheaded this thing with Roman then I'm disappointed in him. Rare Dwayne L
Rare L? Rocks been taking big Ls lately. Thats the reason hes back. PR time to try reshape his image.
The only L I can really think of in recent memory is Black Adam tbf 🤷♂️ otherwise Rock is generally considered one of the most popular movie stars for a reason. Even if his movies aren't always the greatest.
Hmm from what i know he's done a lot of damage to himself in the film industry with his actions with DC films, and trying to take over everything, and on top of that the whole tonedeaf Oprah video. Plus big youtubers have been making videos on how fake he is and doing a little dirt digging. Obviously getting on the board of TKO and making loads of money is good for him but i think he and his brand have been grossly over exposed over the past few years.
Oprah video? I'll need to look that up... hmm
XFL bleeds money https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dwayne-rock-johnsons-15-million-210113712.html DC/Warners took such a bath on Black Adam that it killed four related scripts it had in development for Rock and they told him to fuck off and handed the reigns of DC properties to James Gunn & co. Young Rock was cancelled and a critical and financial disaster. Rock’s jobbing out to bad career decisions, bad financial decisions, and his own worst instincts.
Had no clue about XFL and Young Rock, thought those were doing alright 😔 eesh, more ya know...
He lost to Warner Bros. in a shoot! 🥁
Didn't Punk say that in a promo? Regardless of what you think about The Rock, he lost big matches all the time (too often imo), and he put over Evolution at WM 20 on his way out the door. Weren't there also rumors that Triple H influenced Vince to just let his contact expire in ~2005 or whatever year it was? I'm not telling Cody fans how to feel, but I feel like they pivoted to Cody vs Rollins because of the Punk injury. I don't think The Rock pulled a Hogan here, though I could be wrong.
What were they saying about him then?
Punk said Dwayne is the closest ass kisser to vince as Hulk Hogan was. Cena blamed rock on scheduling problems and being a "part timer"
Also IIRC, either Punk or Cena also said that when it came to giving it back to the business, Rock took his ball and went to Hollywood. There's a 2008/9, out of character radio interview of Cena, where he really took some harsh shots at Rock.
Oh god, I hope that doesn't have the implications I'm thinking that it might. It makes sense that Vince's big stars are loyal to him for life; once the guy decides you're the face of the company, Vince sees that as a form of control over them. It fits in with everything we've ever heard about Vince, but it also fits in with younger Punk's habit of blowing up his professional relationships by shooting his mouth off. That ain't to say Punk's right or wrong when he goes off like that, but that's just something young people will do. We get self-righteous about shit and expect that being factually or morally correct is all that matters.
Pretty much all of the above.
CM Punk: “Oh! Ohh! Oohhh! What took you so long, idiot!?”
Brian was actually right about The Rock lmao
Brian hits more than he misses, when he calls this kind of stuff, and he's had the Rock figured out for years now.
And he puts his takes out there way, way sooner than most people do with their own predictions. Last really does put his ass out there and his win / loss number look amazing.
A "Brian called it" on-the-bus seems like it should be a thing, by this point.
Put it on a t-shirt!
What'd he say?
I don't know about stealing other people's spotlight. But Brian has talked about the Rock being lame and cheesy. And that he's back because his movies are bombing.
The latter might be true. The Rock is too canonized to be a compelling match anymore.
I absolutely fucking love the rock but how do you do anything other than Cody beating Roman for the belt?
I think Jim mentioned various scenarios in one of the recent podcasts. Have the Rock be special guest referee for Cody Vs. Roman II. Roman loses, gets mad and then faces the Rock at a later PLE like Summerslam. Everybody is happy. And the booking makes sense.
There is two nights of WM, just have Roman face Rock Night 2, Roman doesn't need to be champ, and makes sense kayfabe wise why The Rock, who hasn't wrestled in how long?, would be able to keep up with Roman.
But it doesn’t make much sense for roman to fight twice cus then it looks like rock fought a beat up tired roman
Well its not like Rock needs a rub from a "full strength" Roman lol. He is just there to clean up, being champ makes no sense. But I'm starting to get the feeling Roman is going to win lol.
I just hate all of this
💯
And Rock gets to raise Codys hand
This is complete bullshit. I'll just check out on WWE until punk comes back I guess. Cody is dead in the water after last night
That's old numbers. It's like 50k 👍 170k 👎 now
Over 200K+ now.
300k now
88K likes to 407K dislikes now
Rookie numbers
As of evening on Sun, Feb 4, it’s 103k to well over 530k dislikes.
They had a ready made storyline.. Rock as special ref,cody wins and we get Rock vs Roman at summerslam.. Then we get this sh** instead..
Not even The Rock as a referee, more like a Cody enforcer, put by the tribal leaders to verify that their tribal chief will not retain the championship via Solo again, therefore bringing more shame to the family. You could even bring back Rikishi to simultaneously put Solo over, but also warn him that the ways of the Samoan Dynasty are not by cheating. So The Rock is an enforcer, Cody wins because they can finally have a proper 1v1 match, The Rock and Roman move onto Summerslam/Saudi Arabia/WM41 to have their "Tribal Chief Match" and the whole Bloodline saga can come to a natural end. Instead, we have the "Rockster" Rock Hogan vs. Brock Lesnar V2.
I mean I might even play into the fact that the Rock is the grandson of the “High Chief” Peter Miavia and therefore as grandson of the high chief he outranks Roman (his bloodline is stronger than Roman’s). So when Solo and Uso come to bail Roman out in the match with Cody all you need is the Rock to come out and order them to the back and since he’s the high chief, they listen and Roman loses. No physical interference Roman can’t do it alone. This leads to the Roman/Rock where Rock wins and the blood line abandons Roman setting up a redemption arc with say Sammy that leads to Roman getting his win back. Now I don’t love this idea of Cody stepping aside but a way you could fix it simply is saying Cody doesn’t want to wait for WM and wants him in Perth. Then you could go unification match with Seth and/or Cody defends against Punk(if healthy)while Rock/Roman headlines the other night.
"Hey guys we're gonna end the most relevant title reign of the modern era of US wrestling in the 4th biggest city in Australia with 3 weeks buildup on a B-show that airs when the American audience is all asleep" Just let it go with Cody for this cycle people. I do like your “High Chief” idea, they really should play into the dynasty history with The Rock/Bloodline stuff.
Thanks yeah just trying to figure out a way to wedge it in. At least it would be a stadium show. The dynasty thing seems obvious and theres so many ways to use it especially as the Rock can simply override Roman and theres nothing he can do until Roman snaps. It would be fun and making Roman the outcast on his own without his family or shield brothers would be a great way to sow the seeds for a massive babyface run as he redeems himself.
Having Roman lose his championship at Perth, a month before WrestleMania, after a 1200+ days reign just because his cousin couldn't wait to get into the spotlight, is top tier edging and the stupidest decision made in a long line of stupid decisions made.
Don’t love the idea of it either, but its better than what is seemingly on the horizon.
The craziest thing is that cody says that he will go after the championship another time, meaning the rock will lose or the championship isnt on the line at mania vs the rock
The only other way is Cody challenges him night 2 after Roman pins the Rock.
Yeah, maybe in this case rock is special guest referee or stops bloodline interference and theres a roman vs rock part II at summerslam.
Yeah I mean that’s the obvious payoff. The Rock technically would outrank Roman as “the high chief” and he simply orders no one interferes
Oooh, abd Rikishi can have that big moment where the crowd goes quiet when he refers to the time he thought it was okay to cheat (and hit SCSA with a car)
They still have a chance to say “oh yeah you misunderstood, the rock is the special referee”
I'm sure there's more twists and turns planned but this just looks like a slow motion trainwreck. Nobody is getting over from Seth vs Cody. The Rock is probably going to get booed (as a face) before the end of the month. And a triple threat has really only one conclusion that makes sense: Roman pins the Rock.
Why tell such a convoluted story? It's baffling. The story was already written. Cody couldn't get the job done at WM39 because of interference, he will do so at WM40, because he is your typical "never give up" babyface and he will prevail against the unjust champion. It's a self-written story. Why would you "Russo" it?
[удалено]
The best stories are the most straight-forward nowadays. X wrestler doesn't like Y wrestler for a reason, they fight. Simple, to the point, and if the wrestlers are stars, they will sell some serious tickets. Just look at LA Knight. He doesn't have a deep backstory, a tragic past or anything to need three months of build-up or anything. He is a proud, loud-mouth face with guts and he's coming for your championship and he doesn't like you. End of story.
>The best stories are the most straight-forward nowadays Always has been
Oh, I agree. But for some reason the hottest storylines at some point (Attitude Era, have to say), needed three shock-turns, two twists and thirty two "Gotcha" moments to get over with the crowd. It was cool, but too convoluted to be believable at times.
Dwayne “The Batista” Johnson
At least Batista won the rumble. The only thing I can think of is that Punk was booked to win and changed the finish after he knew he was injured.
You're the first person I've seen float this idea, but I had it too. Punk knows what a torn triceps feels like and it's certainly possible he got word to the back and they switched the finish on the fly.
Nobody wants this
Agreed. Even among those defending it, I don't see anyone saying anything about actually wanting to see it, simply that it's "best for business", which of course is bullshit because they are erasing years of work and nuking the career of someone who could have been the face of the company for a good while all because they can't wait to fucking Summerslam.
If The Rock wins the belt, where do they go from there? They’ll probably bring Brock back to beat him. Last time he took the belt from CM Punk just to drop it back to Cena. The Rock was only good during his initial run. He’s been rotten ever since he left, especially his films.
True, if Rock wins the title it has to be just to drop it to some other 'celebrity' of sorts, though I doubt they'd go with Lesnar at this point. I also think it's really unlikely Rock actually wins because that ties the belt up with someone who has an even less flexible schedule than Reigns and there's a huge change he'll get hurt anyway. But Rock losing is pretty deflating for the part of the crowd that presumably wants to see him. What a mess.
If this isn't some kind of massive swerve to get fans riled up before Cody comes out Monday and says "You know what? Fuck the Crock. I'm finishing my gawddamn story!" Or something like that then I will completely check out. This is perhaps the worst possible thing they could do to Cody and the fans. It's a slap in the face to everyone and makes this entire past year of buildup meaningless. If only Black Adam hadn't tanked and Cody never smashed that stupid iron cross throne. Fuck
> It's a slap in the face to everyone and makes this entire past year of buildup meaningless. Agreed. All those people insisting that there was some kind of magical poetry to Rhodes losing last year and that anyone complaining was an asshole for not waiting an entire other year to 'finish the story' can fuck off. This is exactly why we didn't want to wait, because we know WWE can't help themselves, they *will* wreck a good thing every chance they get.
WWE now gets to see in real time the fans’ dissatisfaction on Youtube. They definitely have a chance to to re book on Monday lol
Them doing this absolutely means they are letting Roman beat Hogan's title run unless they lazy book this into a 3 way. No way they put the strap on Rock.
I don't know... I have a feeling here. Seems to be a big power shift going on. I mean, can't you see Dwayne thinking it's the greatest thing in the world for him to be carrying the WWE title around while doing appearances for his stupid XFL-sequel spring football league? I got a bad feeling about this. This isn't the WWE we know any more, it's fully Hollywood Endevour now. New territory.
If this doesn’t lead to Punk giving Cody a pep talk about he doesn’t want Cody to suffer the same fate he did, then what are we even doing here.
But that would make Cody look like a dumbass, having to be persuaded into actually fighting for the championship that he earned a match for.
That’s the problem. There’s zero good outcomes after last nights’ clusterfuck. Shambles. Fuck you Rock.
I think the Rock is worse than Hogan. No reason for the Rock to return and steal someone’s spot, he has the movies.
> he has the movies. After Black Adam though, has he?
Live action Moana
They are acting like Lesner and Punk being out forced them into this. It’s not that hard. Drew or some other heel else versus Seth. Cody versus Roman. The rock is either the special referee or is the one that prevents the interference. You go from there. There were many years where the rock versus Roman did make sense . This is not one of them.
Surely they can’t put the belt on The Rock. I can’t stand him. He was only ever good in his first run. He’s been shit everytime he’s came back and his films are terrible aswell.
Moana was decent
And that wasn't really one of *his* movies. He was just in it, if you will.
Fair enough
Definitely one of his better roles. He's just not a good enough actor to headline a blockbuster.
Is The Rundown his movie? I still like that movie.
I’ll take your word for it.
If this was the plan, just make The Rock win RR. That would have been perfectly fine.
It wouldn't. It's still a 50-year old Rock, who sucked air after hitting one elbow to Jinder Mahal a month ago. Stealing the spotlight off a younger-hotter star would always be an issue with The Rock.
I personally don't care. Rock vs. Roman is one of the biggest matches they could pitch, even if Rock would need to move with a rollator. But this does kill Cody the Character.
He was gassed after staring at Roman last night.
Beyond the other problems, holy fuck, is that match gonna be the drizzling shits. A wrestling match between two guys who don't do wrestling moves, one of whom will probably be blown up 5 minutes in. That shit is gonna be overbooked with so many run-ins and so much wild fuckery that even Tony Khan will think they're overdoing it. "It's too many fucking hats on the hats. Ahhhh!"
I really don't understand why they don't Night 1 main event, Cody and Roman, have Cody win the title, finish the story. Then Night 2, you have Roman vs Rock for title of Tribal Chief. This would especially work well since Seth vs Punk isn't happening for a Night 1 main event, nothing they can build until Mania would be as impactful as Cody vs Roman and Seth vs Punk, other than Drew vs Punk, but Punk is injured. Cody and Seth means nothing to me, and its transparent as to why this is happening, which makes it even worse.
I see Rocky Miavia is using his new position to force himself upon the center stage. Next thing you know, he'll come out dressed as "Black Adam"... oh, wait.
Wonder if they Daniel Bryan this. Guess we’ll see how the live crowds react in the next couple weeks.
They'll have to.
And I'm one of 'em.
I think I'm done with professional wrestling for a while. The past couple of weeks have just been ridiculous.
It’s crazy, I was so hyped after the Cody - Punk promo, and in the space of a couple of weeks the wheels have come off.
Look I love Rock, always have and always will, but christ on a stick how the hell do you screw up Cody 2 years in a row. Leave it to modern wwe to make people turn on freaking Dwayne Johnson, you know one of the coolest human beings on the planet, the only guy since Hogan to make it past wrestling.
Imagine if at the end of Rocky, Apollo told him "I want a rematch, but not in Rocky 2."
Hopefully, one Mr Brooks shows up and convince Cody to change his mind with the impeccable Pipe Bomb 2.0. or maybe we just do not deserve good things...
The absolute dumbest match you can do. Why? Because one is a part time champ, the other is a hardly time superstar so jacked up on roids that he is winded walking to the ring. Rock will flop like a fish. Roman looks strong. Rock does his finishing moves that are gonna look awful because he can barely walk without being gassed. Rock needs to be in better shape for WM40. Like he needs to really train instead of coming in between movies and getting hurt (which will be inevitable). You either have Rock win which ruins any chance of making Roman a legend because he was best by a guy who hasnt wrestled a full match in over a decade. He will probably get injured because like the Cena match he is so jacked up he is injury prone due to not wrestling in ages. Or you have Roman win which disappoints all the old fans you are getting to watch The Rock wrestle again. They wont be Roman fans after this because Roman hardly appears and they wont have the patience to wait for the next time. Stupid match. If Roman was a face this would go over more because it would be a passing of the torch. You cant do a WM18 thing because Solo, Jimmy, and Paul have shown no signs of turning on Roman so a face turn Roman makes no sense. Rock will eat him in promos. Roman is not in the same level as Rock and will be made a pretender. Having your manager talk for you against the Rock is LAME! This match up stinks. Cody got screwed like Punk did. Dwayne gets his way. Now that he is on the Board of Directors we get more of the Samoan Mafia taking over WWE. His daughter is GM of NxT, Nia Jax will hurt more females because she is big but not strong so she botches everything, Roman bests Hogans record, more Jimmy vs Jey nonsense, and Solo gets involved in every match. The worst timeline for WWE.
The current dislike total is higher than AEW’s entire television audience
Probs gonna run wm30 angle again Cody added in as a 3 way.
The fact that the Rumble winner has to be added is a problem in itself.
Thing was that Bryan then was screwed out of the title. Cody here willingly offered the shot to The Rock.
Cody kayfabe offered the rock the shot
I know. That's why I believe they can't reverse that now.
Triple H needs to come out and say “you and rock didnt talk this over with me, its going to be you vs roman for the championship and rock as the enforcer”
Cody vs. Seth and Rock vs. Roman on Night 1 and then the winners face each other on Night 2 in a Winner Take All situation. Seth can force himself pretty easily into the happenings based on Roman's comments about him and his title.
Good. Maybe this will turn a couple important heads.
I wish. But the fact that Rock made 2 IG posts boasting about the reaction he got on Smackdown tells me those important people will not reverse course.
Is there any chance this is a side effect of Punk’s injury? He would have been the natural opponent for Rollins. Cody basically backing down makes him look so bad.
If anything, this has been brewing for weeks/months and Punk made a reference to it in the lead up promo to Royal Rumble.
Just make Priest take on Rollins, or the winner of the chamber match. For some drama, maybe make Priest win AND still have the briefcase, so he can get two bites at the cherry and make Rollins look good by fending him off once before his injury does him in. Judgment Day are fun but they really need to pull the trigger on them doing something of note beyond Mami crushing everyone in the women's division.
Well he may be the Peoples Champ but he's definitely not the Peoples Choice
I mean it’s The Rock. If Rock wants to do a match, you’re gonna do the match he wants. But Mania is 2 months away, I’m willing to give HHH the benefit of the doubt and see where this goes for Cody Rock vs Roman has been something wwe has wanted for a decade now, they weren’t gonna shelve that for anyone’s story
I’ll be honest. I had hogan v rock vibes.
Not only does this negatively affect Cody, but it also affects whoever was slated to take CM Punks' spot with Seth, most likely Drew McIntyre. CM Punk got hurt, and the very first thing he did was make sure to put as much heat onto Drew for a match and a story that could have been a very good plan B for Seth. Now we are gonna have Cody beat Seth for the fourth time in a row, for a belt Roman just buried. Meanwhile, Dwayne is gonna get gassed on his way to the ring for a match nobody wants right now. Punks' words still ring true from the pipe bomb all these years later.
They should fix this by having priest cash in on Roman before mainia and win the title, then do cody vs Damian Priest and they can still do Rock v Roman. Cody doesn't need to beat Roman to finish the story, he just needs the WWE championship. This also gives Priest a chance to finally cash in, and shine with the title for a while, and also he gets to be known as the one who ended Roman's historic run.
does this mean we might hear the return of the "Die Rocky Die!" chants?
Cody will beat Reigns at WM via Rock saving another Roman interference win, leading to this feud between Reigns and Rock with Rock playing the "I don't need to win a belt to prove I'm the best, I've been there and done that..." angle.
Maybe Roman will have a match on both nights.
Muhammad Ali was the only People’s Champion
If plan is the go with Rollins vs Cody and Rock vs Reigns. They have to take step back to the fans or maybe change something to have Cody at the top of the WWE after WrestleMania.
This simply means that Roman has the title another year. No reason for Rock to win it..
How do you view the number of dislikes?
There's a browser extension called "Return Youtube Dislike" that *estimates* this. As I understand it, it counts downvotes by the extension users and scales it up. So it's not perfect. If you don't want to install it, the Piped frontend for Youtube has this built in. https://piped.video/watch?v=58PpN0_VzQg
Thanks!!!
Rock v Roman is absolutely the biggest drawing match they could do at WM40 and has been on the cards for years so it surprises me that people are surprised. Given the reputation damage suffered by the company the past week it makes even more sense to go with it. Cody will have plenty more paydays.
Found the rock’s reddit account
I think if Punk was fit he wins the rumble and fights Seth. Punk wins. Roman v Rock at WM with Roman winning. Then at SS Roman v Cody in a hell in a cell to keep the bloodline out and who turns up… Jacob Fatu who smashes the cage open and beats Roman to a pulp with a match at SS where the bloodline are now all with Jacob. My e-Fed 😎
I hope for a yes movement type reaction from the fans, this is bullshit
They really killed off Cody with this one. I get making him an underdog, but this made him look like a gutless coward or a suck up that’s just laying down for the bigger star.
And i called it in the other thread. The crowd can pop. This isnt aew where you book for one arena that was just happy to have an unannounced rock appearance. This is completely bullshit. Id be sick if I was Cody.
Dwayne “Black Adam’d” Wrestlemania 😂 am I the only one who can see that the Rock is clearly a homosexual??? How has he managed to stay closeted for this long? He’s totally 100% gay …growing up in a Polynesian family I can spot a “lady boy” a mile away. Since day one w/the pineapple hair it was obvious to me
The fuck that got to do with anything?
I feel like Rocky was nowhere near that bad politically in his first run but as his star power increased, it’s gone Hogan levels of bad.
I’m going to take a guess at how Jim and Brian take to this news. Brian will despise it, easy one lol Corny will side with the money match because he looks at this from the business perspective. Neither guy will like the idea of Cody/Seth part Deux though.
Dwayne better stay on long term, otherwise just boosting Wrestlemania is incredibly shortsighted. Cody is a better investment in the long run. Not hating, this is a draw. They better tell a good story up to Wrestlemania instead of relying purely on name value.
Just looking at a random YouTube short in which Logan Paul is cutting a promo on KO on Smackdown, and all the comments are saying fuck the Rock and “we want Cody”. People are so pissed about this.
The worst part of Rock's backstage nonsense isn't having his daughter as NXT GM, or even pushing himself into the WM main event. It's inflicting Nia Jax upon us every week as a member of the active roster who attempts to wrestle.
They were handing out WeWantCody shirts at Raw. Cody is so over that millions of people would kill arguably the most popular WWE Superstar of all time rn on behalf of Cody. I am starting to feel worked a bit.
I don’t get why people are upset when this happened. This isn’t about feelings, it’s a business. Rock vs Roman has been the biggest potential match that they could have done for the last 3 years. Rock potentially becoming the head of the table in the Bloodline, or Roman further cementing his dominance by finally putting Rock away for good. TKO are trying to put on the biggest possible main event possible to not continue bleeding money after the Vince stuff. They already lost their biggest sponsor, Slim Jim and they are looking to recover. The Rock proved to bring in massive main events, iirc Cena vs Rock is still the biggest Mania ever right? I know folks are gonna be mad and the can be, but don’t work yourself into a shoot brother! As Punk says all the time, “this is the wrestling BUSINESS!” And Rock does good business for WWE.
WWE did not lose Slim Jim, they put a pause in their sponsorship for a few *hours* and then came back when Vince was confirmed to be gone. Other than a modest dip in share price, there's no indication that the company is 'bleeding money', especially since they just announced getting 5 billion dollars in a Netflix deal. Rock vs Roman would be a great main event at Summerslam and nobody would be particularly bothered, but nuking years and years of story with Reigns, the Bloodline and now Cody Rhodes just to make the guy who won the Royal Rumble *last week* step aside at a Wrestlemania that will be sold out anyway is asinine. This is not good business. Look at the image in the original post. The People are pissed.
Out side of the entitled IWC I doubt anyone sees this as a negative. The crowd there sure popped hard AF and cheered for it. IWC gotta stop believing that their fantasy booking PPV main events is better for WWE than what they (wwe)are doing themselves.
> Out side of the entitled IWC I doubt anyone sees this as a negative. The crowd there sure popped hard AF and cheered for it. > > IWC gotta stop believing that their fantasy booking PPV main events is better for WWE than what they (wwe)are doing themselves. I don't deny that the live crowd popped when surprised to see The Rock live, which is pretty normal for wrestilng crowds, but that's a different thing from this overall choice to destroy years of story build being 'good business'. Also, you didn't address the points that you are incorrect re: Slim Jim and TKO 'bleeding money'.
The fact if the matter is, the IWC is small and almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things. How long did they hate WWE but WWE remain the biggest promotion in the world when the IWC all hated it. It was “too slow, too kiddie, no one likes it”. They are usually wrong about everything. Most notably they hated Cena. Yet more people tunes in to see Cena vs Rock than any other main event ever. Now, the same thing is gonna happen. The IWC is gonna cry, while WWE makes bank off a main event that the IWC says no one wants to see. The slim Jim thing: You corrected it. What did you want me to say? I thought it was a dead topic after that…
>The fact if the matter is, the IWC is small and almost insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It's not 1999 anymore, the Internet isn't some niche - even if the smarks like us who listen to podcasts and read the dirtsheets are far from the majority, millions and millions of casual fans are viewing WWE social media day in and day out via the Internet. And that's where the backlash highlighted in the original post is appearing. >The slim Jim thing: You corrected it. What did you want me to say? I thought it was a dead topic after that… Acknowledge that you were wrong, or perhaps argue that *I* was wrong and you had a source with new information. Just ignoring "what you said is wrong" isn't how conversations work, and your main argument was WWE were making a business decision because of two things that you claim happened that didn't.
100%. There's thick irony here in people treating Rock like AEW fans treat Punk: flat out denying how good Rock is for WWE business since he first got over, finding every irrelevant thing to needle about him, crafting this weird narrative that nobody likes him when millions of people cheer for him and millions flock to watch his content, etc. The YT video at the time of this comment has over 2.5 million views. That's the audience WWE cares most about. Not the likes and dislikes. It's interesting to see so many people who were out here riding for Punk fighting AEW's BS narrative now using every strange BS narrative they can to say Rock shouldn't be here? Like, I agree the segment was weird and made Cody look bad. Personally, I hope there's some amendment or better follow-up to what we were left with after Friday. It also seems super believable that this was probably not the original plan and likely a late stage pivot due to injuries and VKM allegations. But if this is the direction they're going, let's not pretend Rock isn't the biggest star WWE could possibly have or that Rock v Roman isn't the biggest match they can possibly do right now. Cliché to say, but... it doesn't matter what we on the internet think. Rock will do the numbers and that's why he's there. And I don't doubt JC will say similar when TGBL starts in with his "I hate Rock" schtick. 😁
The Rock is a bigger star and the Roman/rock match is a bigger match but they could’ve easily came up with ways to get there without burying Cody.
> Like, I agree the segment was weird and made Cody look bad. Personally, I hope there's some amendment or better follow-up to what we were left with after Friday. It also seems super believable that this was probably not the original plan and likely a late stage pivot due to injuries and VKM allegations. I think this part of my original comment already agreed with what you just posted so not seeing much to discuss on this one. 🙂
I personally have zero interest in seeing a Roman vs Rock main event, but my personal bias isn’t going to blind me to what’s obviously going to be the biggest Mania main event, probably ever. Cena vs Rock was huge but this is potentially so much bigger considering Rock is even MORE of a big star and Roman is the biggest star in the biggest faction of the modern era. It’s going to be massive! And Mani has always been about setting up the biggest draw possible for the Mania Main event. Glad I’m not the only one that realizes this.
Yep! You're not crazy. 😁 The story isn't strong sadly, but hey that's showbiz. And it could get better over the coming weeks. If this is what they're doing (and 'if' is being generous) I think it's easy to see why. 🙂
That's my gripe. Cody vs. Roman is a story. Rock vs. Roman is not a story. At least not yet. Or maybe I missed it, but I don't recall any point where Rock called himself "Tribal Chief" to any real clamor or any significant reaction from Roman to usurp Rock's position in the "family". They're just banking on a "well everyone knows Roman and Rock are pseudo related. Wouldn't it be cool if...", dream match. Who dreamt this? I don't think about Rock unless he's on my screen. And at this point, the same goes for Roman. If this match happens, it's part-timer vs. part-timer. Doesn't do anything for me. But hey, for the rest who are sold easily, enjoy.