Hollywood Rock

[ColinBollocks]

7 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Amazing stuff. Then he assures Gillberg he'll look after him before he runs away. What a heel. Unfortunately for Big Bad Bill, he then gets outsmarted by The rock because he tries to RUN after Rock's HUMMER LIMO. What a fucking moron. The only other issue with this is that Lawler would not shut the fuck up. As was the style at the time. Shit cunt.

Bruce Prichard has got a pretty good story about Goldberg chasing the limo on his podcast. Apparently, they spent ages practising the angle before they went live, only for the car to give up on the live show. Of course, Goldberg running after a long gone limo is still hilarious.

[BomberPat]

Not a popular opinion, but I was never really a fan of The Rock - until this. 

Outside of Wrestlemania 17, I'd never really enjoyed his matches. I started watching again in mid-2000, so missed his rise to the top, and I came to wrestling during Austin's absence, with Rock as the ubiquitous top guy, hamming it up through catchphrases, bullying interviewers, and doing alpha male, juvenile innuendo-laden promos that someone like John Cena would get crucified for. I'd missed the part where Rock had organically become that character, and reached him at the point where WWE were trying to write for a guy who'd been entertaining on his own merit - the same thing that makes acts like The New Day insufferable now.

 

The Hollywood stuff, though? Fucking incredible. Just a guy being given seemingly free reign to do and say whatever he liked, and lord it up over the rest of the roster for it, and because he didn't have to rely on pandering to the crowd, on cheesy catchphrases, and on trying to pop the audience with shit jokes, he was infinitely more engaging and entertaining. Really knew how and when to show ass and just be made to look a fool, too.

 

People mentioning how stacked the roster is - that's probably why this worked. With Austin and Hogan in the mix, Goldberg on his way in, plus a supporting cast of Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Kevin Nash, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Ric Flair...and Lesnar, Cena, Batista, Orton, Mysterio and Edge rising up the ranks, they could completely afford to take the risk of turning one of their top guys. Now, they couldn't get away with turning Cena or Reigns heel in the same fashion, because there's no one close to their level to go up against them, or to carry the ball as top babyface.

Not only that, but the days of the fans resenting someone for leaving WWE are long gone. A top babyface saying they were fucking off to make movies would probably get the biggest pop of the night now.

[Pinc]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

People mentioning how stacked the roster is - that's probably why this worked. With Austin and Hogan in the mix, Goldberg on his way in, plus a supporting cast of Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Kevin Nash, Chris Jericho, Undertaker, Ric Flair...and Lesnar, Cena, Batista, Orton, Mysterio and Edge rising up the ranks, they could completely afford to take the risk of turning one of their top guys. Now, they couldn't get away with turning Cena or Reigns heel in the same fashion, because there's no one close to their level to go up against them, or to carry the ball as top babyface.

Do people really believe this? What do people think would happen with a heel Reigns or Cena on the shows? Does Reigns in particular move the needle so much that they'd see a significant loss of revenue if they pivoted to Rollins (or whoever) as the top face?

[The King of Old School]

Seth Rollins was the hottest babyface on the roster inbetween Mania & Summerslam, they could have easily turned Reigns heel, Braun, Balor and Ambrose would have been excellent feuds for him until the Mania showdown with Seth.

[air_raid]

By weird coincidence the other night I was trying to occupy my brain with random stuff and after I'd done Shawn's big two of 2002 and the Nitro from either side of Spring Stampede 97, I watched the ten minutes (guesstimate) of No Way Out 2003 that covers Steve Austin vs Eric Bischoff and the entrances for Rock vs Hogan because how much I love crowds making big noise and going nuts. In doing so I was reminded of the range of Rock's delivery in the promo work and face to face with Hogan where he's exasperated, almost veers into slapstick, displays cowardice and aggression in equal doses... he's absolutely sublime. His final form, in essence. They had to turn him once to get him over and find out who he was, the false dawn turn in 98 proved how good he was at being himself and that people would love him for it, and after peaking in terms of popularity and success, the full emergence of the TWAT he always was, was amazing. Imagine a timeline where No Way Out was the return from a mere dalliance with the acting lark and he'd done that character for a year or more. With him as top heel on Raw instead of then-tepid HHH. Potentially delaying the Goldberg match for, as part of persuading Bill to sign for another year, Hollywood Rock putting Goldberg over for the big gold belt in the main of Mania XX.

6 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Now, they couldn't get away with turning Cena or Reigns heel in the same fashion, because there's no one close to their level to go up against them, or to carry the ball as top babyface.

 

 

3 hours ago, Pinc said:

 Does Reigns in particular move the needle so much that they'd see a significant loss of revenue if they pivoted to Rollins (or whoever) as the top face?

 

26 minutes ago, The King of Old School said:

Seth Rollins was the hottest babyface on the roster inbetween Mania & Summerslam, they could have easily turned Reigns heel, Braun, Balor and Ambrose would have been excellent feuds for him until the Mania showdown with Seth.

It's not about "the show" or noise or any artistic reasons. It's about selling t-shirts to children. You don't turn the heroes that sell the most t-shirts to kids. If Seth had better merch sales than Roman he might get a crack at top babyface. He doesn't. According to Meltzer there's a gigantic gap between Cena/Reigns and the rest in terms of merch sales. Kids buy Romans tat and make their mum buy a ticket to see him. In 2018 that's a golden goose they won't cook.