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| Photo Credit: WWE.com |
The Rock (c) vs. John Cena
How: The Rock won the WWE Championship from CM Punk at the Royal Rumble. John Cena won the Royal Rumble match, and he chose Rock as his Mania target.
The Story: A long time ago, in a galaxy far... wait, no, that's not it.
Once upon a time, The Rock was a WWF superstar of the highest order. His natural charisma made it easy for fans either to boo him or cheer him, depending on how he wanted to be perceived. When you're that natural a talent, you get too big for the wrestling industry, so he started taking movie roles. Those movie roles got bigger and more numerous to the point where nine years ago, he had his final match as a regular, WWE superstar, at WrestleMania XX with Mick Foley against Evolution.
In the time since then, a new hero had emerged from the fray, one who wore jorts, affected Eminem more than Bruno Sammartino, and preached about hustle, loyalty, and respect. John Cena inherited the role of franchise from men like The Rock and his rival/contemporary "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. While he had dalliances with movies, none of them were as remotely successful as Rock's lowest-drawing role. However, he did assume the position of top WWE guy better than anyone had since Rocky left. Better than Triple H, better than He Who Shall Not Be Named, better than Big Dave Batista, better than Randy Orton, better than Edge, better than The Undertaker, better than Eddie Guerrero (although who knows if he lived whether that would have remained the case), better than anyone.
Still, there was a massive chip on Cena's shoulder. No matter how well he seemed to do, there was always the question that dogged him. Why couldn't he be as "good" as the guys from the Attitude Era? Why can't he be The Rock? Those questions made him break eventually, as he trashed Rocky in interviews, asking why he didn't stick around, that if he loved WWE so much, why did he leave? The Rock remained silent to those criticisms, making us think he was above them. But on February 14, 2011, he revealed that he wasn't exactly no-selling the criticisms. He came back to be revealed as the host for WrestleMania XXVII, and as soon as he took to the mic, he started laying into Cena for his wardrobe, his mannerisms, and his insinuations that The Rock held the WWE in anything resembling contempt.
It prompted Cena to fire back during the build to that Mania, even though the partner on his dance card was The Miz. Poor, poor Mike Mizanin, an afterthought in his own main event. As that match started out, it looked like the only outside factor would be Alex Riley, but they brawled to the outside, both getting counted out, leaving an apparent retention for The Miz of his WWE Championship. However, Rock wouldn't have that, so as the official host of WrestleMania, he restarted the match, gave Cena the Rock Bottom, and made sure Miz left with the title in tow. This incensed Cena enough to lay the challenge down to The Rock for WrestleMania XXVIII a whole year in advance. Rock accepted, signing on to become an active WWE superstar for the first time in eight years.
Before their Mania match happened, Cena ran afoul of Miz again, this time while he was in cahoots with R-Truth to rain death, destruction, and general anarchy on WWE. Cena needed help to take out those two "threats," ones he had no trouble dispatching by himself at various points on the timeline, so he called in a favor to The Rock to be his tag partner at Survivor Series. Questions as to whether they could coexist swirled beforehand, but they had no problems dispatching The Awesome Truth in the main event match. After the match though, Rocky sent a salvo to Cena by Rock Bottoming him.
The build towards their first Mania match was ignited with that moment, with Cena starting to call Rock out for only showing up sometimes, relying on "satellite" appearances, and when he did show up, calling him out on reading scripts written on his hand. Rock's responses were more homophobic and misogynist comments thrown Cena's way. Then, the match happened, and Cena had things under control for a good bit of the match, before letting his hubris get the best of him. He tried to mock Rock by hitting him with his own People's Elbow, but before he could drop it, Rock sprung up, hit him with the Rock Bottom, and claimed victory.
For The Rock, his journey in WWE was set upon a familiar path. He promised to win the WWE Championship, a feat which he did against CM Punk at the Royal Rumble this past year, ending the former Champ's epic 434 day title reign. For Cena, a different road was taken. He was without the WWE Championship since losing it back to Alberto del Rio at Hell in a Cell '11. Despite the fact that he had numerous opportunities at Punk, he couldn't come away with the win. He also got divorced in real life, something that in character he blamed on the loss to The Rock. IT was a loss that stuck with him, as he revealed, so much so that he had to get another shot at him.
So he won the Royal Rumble.
It was a bit of blind faith on his part, since Rock didn't win the title until after Cena's Rumble win, but maybe Cena knew. Either way, it set up one more collision between the two titans in the industry. Their lead up to the match this year was less predicated on macho posturing and more on whether Cena had it in him to beat Rocky. While Cena had shown a facade of respect, last week's RAW saw his true inner feelings bubble out, that Cena in fact beat himself in that match. The Rock only responded to it with the same bravado, but one has to wonder if it will only light a fire under him that we haven't seen...
Analysis: Last year's match was watchable at the time. I haven't gone back and rewatched it, but others have and said it plays a lot better both with age and outside the trappings of a Mania where at least two other matches surpassed it, be it in technical mechanics or in emotional crescendo. This year, some things have changed, while others haven't. Rock has seemingly gotten his sea legs underneath of him, something that he didn't have going into the match last year. While he still seems to have the cardio of Fatty McGee, he at least has a better idea of pacing and ring positioning. Both of those CM Punk matches were pretty good, and when it comes down to it, it's not insane to suggest that Cena and Punk are equals in the ring. Then again, does transitive property always work in wrestling?
Still, there are some pitfalls surrounding the match. The undercard is really strong this year, and there's a chance that the crowd could be super into Lesnar/Triple H as well as Punk/Taker. What would that mean for viewing of a second Rock/Cena match? I can't pretend to know for sure, but I do think there are similar pitfalls from last year with Jericho/Punk and Trips/Taker sucking some of the soul from that match. However, there is one big question with this match that could be the invariable trump card.
What if John Cena turns heel?
This has been the white whale for meta-fans such as myself for years now. They seem to be strongly hinting at it. I mean, the closing segment from RAW in Philly had so much bad guy intention embedded in the DNA of it that I'm shocked that Cena didn't slip in a "you people" right then and there. People have suggested it was similar to Austin's promo before WrestleMania X-7, and WWE loves recycling tropes. I also feel compelled to make the case that John Cena may have already turned heel. When he tried to drop the People's Elbow on Rock last year, he turned. Good guy Cena isn't usually concerned with that kind of hubris, is he? Well, dropping the pallet of chairs on RED BELLY at TLC '10 might have proven otherwise, but there was a justified storyline reason for that for people who like their heels to be lawful evil.
But since losing to The Rock via hubris, with the exception of the Brock Lesnar mini-feud, was there any one where he was in the right completely? Maybe he was justified with Big Johnny Laurinaitis, but at the same time, that should have ended when he defeated Lesnar. The CM Punk feud was based on Cena reinforcing every negative thing Punk had been saying about him since the original pipe bomb promo. The Dolph Ziggler feud morphed into Cena not wanting to share the spotlight with a guy who was on the up-and-coming, even if he was provoked by Vickie Guerrero, who ended up being dumped by Ziggler anyway.
It almost feels like WWE has been a referendum on John Cena, the Franchise, the last 10 years. I wonder if that referendum is going to come to an end with him turning heel and letting someone else try to fell him to take their place beside him in the pantheon. I don't know. I also don't know if WWE even has the intestinal fortitude to turn their biggest fulltime star into a villain. This could all just be speculation in futility. However, I feel like I am invested in the main event this year to a point where I haven't been since Cena wrestled Shawn Michaels six years ago (and then, the only shows I watched during the year were the Rumble, Mania, and SummerSlam!). I'd say at least for me, WWE accomplished its mission this year.
Who Should Win: As much as I want to say Rocky should win to set up an epic Cena heel turn that would shake the foundation of WWE to its core, I'm not sure that ship will ever sail unless Daniel Bryan, Sheamus, or some other heretofore unknown to me wrestler busts out and becomes the man that Cena has been for the last decade. Cena should win here, even if it sets up ONCE IN A LIFETIME 3: NOW WE'RE TROLLING YOU OPENLY next year.
Who Will Win: Cena. I mean, he can't have ANOTHER awful year again, can he?