{"id":14596,"date":"2016-03-29T18:33:09","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T23:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=14596"},"modified":"2016-03-29T20:50:26","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T01:50:26","slug":"rock-talks-getting-roman-reigns-treatment-early-wwe-run-changed-audience-instagram-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/03\/29\/rock-talks-getting-roman-reigns-treatment-early-wwe-run-changed-audience-instagram-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rock talks getting the &#8220;Roman Reigns treatment&#8221; early in his WWE run, what changed for him &#038; the audience?, more in Instagram blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-781687131\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>&#8220;The Rock&#8221; Dwayne Johnson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BDjIXYSIh4N\/\" target=\"_blank\">posted a multi-layered Instagram blog on Tuesday<\/a> talking about his Roman Reigns-like experience being an unwanted babyface booed out of the building at WrestleMania 13 in 1997.<\/p>\n<p>Rock did not mention his cousin Reigns by name, but Rock&#8217;s story and his description of his struggles as Rocky Maivia fit Reigns in today&#8217;s WWE landscape.<\/p>\n<p>Most notably, Rock talked about how not being real and acting how the company told him to act generated strong boos from the audience.<\/p>\n<p>Rock talked about his re-emergence as a character when he turned heel after WM13 &#8211; teasing\u00a0at a possible outcome for Reigns in 2016. Along those lines, Rock focused on WM13, which included the famous double-turn of &#8220;Stone Cold&#8221; Steve Austin and Bret Hart &#8211; teasing\u00a0at a possible outcome for Reigns and Triple H in the main event of WM31.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of whether Rock&#8217;s story is a red herring or preview of what&#8217;s to come for Reigns&#8217;s character, Rock&#8217;s story is applicable to how today&#8217;s audience is receiving Reigns and reacting to his presentation.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Rock shared the story because there&#8217;s a good ending of him becoming a top star for WWE and eventually a major entertainment icon. Reigns has not shown those type of leading man traits during his current run in the main event spotlight. Is a heel turn the solution? Rock&#8217;s story seems to suggest he thinks it could be&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1997, I was 25yrs old, the youngest Intercontinental Champion in WWE history and performing in #WrestleMania13.<\/p>\n<p>It would become one of the most defining moments of my life. Not because it was my first WrestleMania I had the privilege to be a part of, but because I was boo&#8217;d out of the building. Literally boo&#8217;s from 20,000 people that screamed &#8220;Get the f*ck outta here.&#8221; And when you&#8217;re supposed to be a good guy or &#8220;babyface&#8221; in wrestling speak &#8211; getting boo&#8217;d is the worst thing that can ever happen. They boo&#8217;d me because I wasn&#8217;t being real. I was told by the company how to act, how to respond to fans and the worst part of all.. I was told what to say and what not to say.<br \/>\nNot long after this match, I lost the title and was eventually sent home for months to recuperate from an injury &#8211; it didn&#8217;t really matter anyway because I wasn&#8217;t drawing the company any money nor did the fans care I was gone.<\/p>\n<p>A week before I was scheduled to return to the WWE, I got a call from Vince who said &#8220;How do feel about turning heel?&#8221; (which means becoming a bad guy). I said &#8220;Great, but I have one request&#8230; give me 2 minutes on the microphone on live TV and let me be myself. Be real and authentic. I gotta be me.&#8221; Vince said &#8220;You got it.&#8221; The following week I cut a promo that was from the heart. Real and authentic.<\/p>\n<p>6 months later I was the hottest heel in the company.<\/p>\n<p>Even though I hated being boo&#8217;d out of the building at WrestleMania13, I learned one of the greatest life lessons that still serves me today. Be real. Be authentic. Be me.<\/p>\n<p>Truly my honor to perform this Sunday at #WrestleMania32 for the WWE Universe.. as me. #TheRock #DwayneJohnson #BigBrownBaldTattooedPuppyLover #SlightlyElectrifyingAndOneHandsomeSumbitch<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-579631979\"><div id=\"pwtor-1767117876\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>&#8220;The Rock&#8221; Dwayne Johnson posted a multi-layered Instagram blog on Tuesday talking about his Roman Reigns-like experience being an unwanted babyface booed out of the building at WrestleMania 13 in 1997. Rock did not mention <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/03\/29\/rock-talks-getting-roman-reigns-treatment-early-wwe-run-changed-audience-instagram-blog\/\" title=\"The Rock talks getting the &#8220;Roman Reigns treatment&#8221; early in his WWE run, what changed for him &#038; the audience?, more in Instagram blog\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[294,133,132,71],"class_list":["post-14596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news_wwe","tag-the-rock","tag-wm32","tag-wrestlemania","tag-wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Rock_3x2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14597,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14596\/revisions\/14597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}