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When it comes to The Rock and John Cena and how they’ve handled media questions about The Rock’s involvement at WrestleMania this year, it has been a letdown hearing them talk about their participation and the lack of empathy for how the fans felt about it to various media outlets. Listening to them talk about Cena’s heel turns has a been a modern day example of the old saying you should never meet your heroes or in this case listen to them talk about something you care about.
Fans invest their time and money into wrestling. It has been proven that when WWE combines good storytelling with strong main event characters that their business rises. Look no further than Roman Reigns’s Bloodline storyline, which saw WWE expand their business with Reigns as their centerpiece as the Tribal Chief. 
WWE is still riding that wave of momentum and benefitting from a scaled back schedule where the warts of the product won’t show up as quickly as when the company ran over 200 dates per year with house shows, TV, and PLEs. WWE now runs all of their tentpole events in stadiums. Raw is on Neftlix, PLE’s are on ESPN, NXT is on The CW, Smackdown is on USA, and Peacock airs SNME and NXT PLEs. Life is good for WWE right now even during a period where their storytelling has taken a turn for the worse.
WWE creative peaked with Cody Rhodes beating Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40, which effectively ended the Roman Reigns’s Bloodline story that had carried the company for a long period of time. So, how did WWE get to where they are today. For starters, the long-term storytelling is gone in favor of creating moments. It was a moment when Cena gave Rock his soul at Elimination Chamber earlier this year and turned heel. Then it was another moment when Cena decided to just turn face right before SummerSlam. WWE is about moments now.
At the post-Elimiantion Chamber PLE press conference after Cena turned heel. Rock appeared and was asked if his appearance at Bad Blood in September of 2024 was part of a big picture plan that was going to lead to Cena’s heel turn and. the Rock said he likes to play the long game. “It meant something. I’m a long gamer. I like long gaming,” said Rock. “I like creating with Paul Levesque and Brian Gewirtz and Maya Lasry, who is on my side of the team. I like creating with Paul and his team as well. We’re long gamers. A lot thought Bad Blood, when I just did a small subtle thing, there was a lot of criticism. ‘Oh, it didn’t mean anything.’ It did. It’s okay. It’s okay if you’re not thinking about it now, but just trust me when I tell you, we are thinking about this stuff and long gaming this.”
Many people expected Rock to appear at WrestleMania with Travis Scott to be part of the Cena vs. Rhodes match for the WWE Undisputed Championship this year. Only Scott appeared at WrestleMania and Rock was nowhere to be found leaving fans befuddled. The build obviously pointed to Rock being involved at WrestleMania. Him owning Cena’s soul surely meant that he would be make an appearance during the Cena vs. Rhodes match, right? Wrong!
The Rock appeared on the Pat McAfee Show after WrestleMania and was asked about his involvement in storylines and his tone changed. He went from saying he liked playing the long game when it came to creative to detailing a very different scenario for how his involvement in the Elimination Chamber heel turn with Cena came about saying that he was called by TKO owner Ari Emanual about a month before the show because it needed a boost. “I got a call about a month before Elimination Chamber,” said Rock. “I get a call from Ari Emanuel, who we know owns TKO, TKO owns WWE, he’s been my long-time business partner and one of my best friends for over 20 years. He said we need help at Elimination Chamber, ticket sales are a little slow.”
What Rock described hardly sounds like long-term planning to me. He detailed how Rhodes was supposed to turn heel, but Triple H brought up the idea of turning Cena heel instead, which was an idea Rock endorsed. The Rock told McAfee he decided after Elimination Chamber that Rhodes and Cena did not need his Final Boss character to complete their story. “And I called John after Elimination Chamber, spoke to him, called Cody, and I said I think the Final Boss’s work is done,” said Rock. “We’ve established it, we’ve just pulled off the greatest angle in the history of professional wrestling other than Hulk Hogan turning heel back in the ’90s. I said this is amazing, we have six weeks, now let’s build. You guys go and crush it. And I’ll be right there with you and I’m always here if you need me, but I think it’s best not for the Final Boss to be involved in that finish.”
The matter-of-fact way in which Rock talked about his involvement in the biggest angle leading to the biggest match on WWE’s biggest show of the year was disappointing to say the least. After all, how could so little thought be put into the biggest match on the biggest show of the year?
The Rock’s comments about his involvement in the Rhodes vs. Cena match at WrestleMania didn’t seem to take the fans thoughts into consideration, but when the topic was brought up to Cena, his reaction was even worse than Rock’s, as he told Van Vliet that the expectations of fans don’t matter. “Who cares? It doesn’t matter,” Cena said on the Dec. 9 edition of Insight with Chris Van Vliet. “We can talk about what could have been until the cows come home and I think that’s what’s great about the people who are left standing. Certainly me and Cody. What’s the change? this? Alright, let’s go. I don’t dwell for one second on what could have been, because what could have been is Brock doesn’t leave for the NFL and there’s no John Cena.”’
It was bad enough that Cena said what he did to Van Vliet about the fans expectations not mattering, but it’s another thing for him to say it with a measured tone like everything he’s saying reveals the secret to life and is the most important thing anyone listening has ever heard in their lives. Cena also said to Van Vliet that his heel turn was not part of the original plan for his WrestleMania storyline and that it was done to create a moment. “This is just my perspective,” said Cena. “What I like is people are talking about it. And the cool thing is, people who are critical of it, apparently had some idea in their head about what they wanted, which is great, because that means you’re attached, that means you care. I enjoy that, and I hear that criticism. When we did it, we did it as a big moment, but with a purpose.”
The main issue with the comments from Cena and Rock are they admitted that WWE is now looking to create moments to garner fan attention on social media channels to generate buzz. It is clear that WWE storylines are no longer holding the attention of their fans.
Rock, who is a TKO board member, has thrown a wrench into the plans for WrestleMania for two years in a row now. WWE reversed course on Cody Rhodes backing out of his match against Roman Reigns at WM 40 due to fan backlash with Rock being the one to face Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Championship. It was tough for WWE to get Rhodes back in the main event of WrestleMania logically, but what they did worked because the fans only wanted him in the main event. Fast Forward to the build to WM 41 this year and once again Rock got involved and threw a wrench into WWE’s plans for WrestleMania.
This time Rock decided to vanish after taking Cena’s soul at Elimination Chamber because he felt the work of his Final Boss character was done. Rock had created the moment WWE felt that it needed to gain momentum for WrestleMania, but creating moments and telling stories are two different things. The story WWE told with Cena’s heel turn and Rock’s lack of involvement was a letdown to most WWE fans. as they expected Rock to be involved in the match in some manner.
Another issue is in relation to Cena and why is he disparaging fans that care about the product and storytelling while doing media during what is supposed to be the week of his last match ever in WWE. Cena would have been better off giving just about any other answer than he did to Van Vliet about fans questions about Rock’s involvement in his WrestleMania storyline. He simply wrote off their concerns like they didn’t matter. Someone as media savvy as Cena is should know better than to say it doesn’t matter what fans think that even if it is what he really believes.
I have enjoyed Cena’s career from start to finish. I have admired the charity work he does with the Maka-A-Wish foundation. I believe he is just scratching the surface with his potential as an actor in recent years capable of carrying both comedy and action films as a leading man. He is one of the best all-time wrestlers to ever set foot in the ring, but he also could use a lesson in humility and empathy when it comes to how fans react to his storylines. The same goes for The Rock. It’s going to be hard to enjoy their work in wrestling and acting going forward knowing they care very little about what their fans value, who pour their time and money into consuming their products.
Contact Sean at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. Follow him on X: @SR_Torch and on BluSky @SeanRadican
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