WWE advertising The Rock's in-ring return for Survivor Series

[S.L.L.]

If the Rock wants to wrestle before Mania, WWE would be stupid to say no.

You know, if a guy hasn't been in the ring for eight years, and you're planning on having him main event the biggest show of the year, is it really that bad of an idea for him to have a tune-up match first?

[Loss]

This seems like a good place to post this:

 

The finish to Rock/Cena is going to be nearly impossible to get right. They cannot put Cena over Rock in Miami without a ridiculous backlash. All the same, Rock going over Cena makes a big statement that there's no point in following current WWE because the guys of the past are better than the torchbearer today.

 

They'll have to pick one, but neither is really win-win. I do agree with whoever in the company it was making arguments for why the match shouldn't happen. It was too late by that time since the match had already been announced, but I do agree that there is no way to make everyone happy with the end result of that match.

 

To be clear, I don't agree that they should cancel the match. They've announced it, they have to do it. I do think that the arguments against doing the match at all are valid.

[Kostka]

Its John Cena, though. He needs to beat The Rock. Any kind of backlash isn't out of the norm for the nature of his character. The same people who would shit on it are the same people that shit on him already. I don't see how it would hurt him.

[Matt D]

This seems like a good place to post this:

 

The finish to Rock/Cena is going to be nearly impossible to get right. They cannot put Cena over Rock in Miami without a ridiculous backlash. All the same, Rock going over Cena makes a big statement that there's no point in following current WWE because the guys of the past are better than the torchbearer today.

 

They'll have to pick one, but neither is really win-win. I do agree with whoever in the company it was making arguments for why the match shouldn't happen. It was too late by that time since the match had already been announced, but I do agree that there is no way to make everyone happy with the end result of that match.

 

To be clear, I don't agree that they should cancel the match. They've announced it, they have to do it. I do think that the arguments against doing the match at all are valid.

I think we need to make a flow chart for this situation since it comes up all the time.

 

Is Cena facing someone more over than him? ------> Yes -------> Turn Cena Heel

[kjh]

This seems like a good place to post this:

 

The finish to Rock/Cena is going to be nearly impossible to get right. They cannot put Cena over Rock in Miami without a ridiculous backlash. All the same, Rock going over Cena makes a big statement that there's no point in following current WWE because the guys of the past are better than the torchbearer today.

 

They'll have to pick one, but neither is really win-win. I do agree with whoever in the company it was making arguments for why the match shouldn't happen. It was too late by that time since the match had already been announced, but I do agree that there is no way to make everyone happy with the end result of that match.

 

To be clear, I don't agree that they should cancel the match. They've announced it, they have to do it. I do think that the arguments against doing the match at all are valid.

It seems that Rock's on board to do multiple matches next year with WWE creative batting around the idea of a three match series between Cena and Rock. If that's the case, then I think having Rock lose in his first singles match back would be a mistake. It's a pity they haven't got a hot young star ready to be fast tracked to superstardom, as having Rock beat Cena but then lose to a rising star would have more long term benefits than adding another big name to the long list that Cena has already vanquished. Punk might have been that guy and might still be the best guy for that role, but he's cooled off a ton in the past few weeks.

[NintendoLogic]

I'm going to reiterate my belief that Wrestlemania being in Miami won't be a significant factor in how the match is received. If it were in American Airlines Arena, sure. But in a stadium, South Floridians aren't even going to be close to a majority of the fans in attendance. It's like the Super Bowl in that regard. Cena's definitely going to get booed out of the building, but that would happen anywhere in the country.

[sek69]

This seems like a good place to post this:

 

The finish to Rock/Cena is going to be nearly impossible to get right. They cannot put Cena over Rock in Miami without a ridiculous backlash. All the same, Rock going over Cena makes a big statement that there's no point in following current WWE because the guys of the past are better than the torchbearer today.

 

They'll have to pick one, but neither is really win-win. I do agree with whoever in the company it was making arguments for why the match shouldn't happen. It was too late by that time since the match had already been announced, but I do agree that there is no way to make everyone happy with the end result of that match.

 

To be clear, I don't agree that they should cancel the match. They've announced it, they have to do it. I do think that the arguments against doing the match at all are valid.

 

Didn't they kind of already have this sort of situation with Hogan vs Rock? Hogan was over huge with the Toronto crowd, and didn't really want to see him lose, but after the fall there was just a slight moment of "aww poop, he lost" which was quickly followed by "wow that was a great fucking match". The only way I see the Miami crowd completely shitting on this is if the match itself is lousy, which may be why they want the Rock to have a few matches beforehand to make sure there's no glitches.

[Loss]

I personally was surprised by the Hogan reaction. I didn't anticipate that prior to Mania, as Hogan got a nice reaction his first couple of nights in, but didn't really get a crazy big reaction in the weeks leading into Mania. Him beating Rock on the Raw before Mania played to a really quiet crowd.

 

Plus, Hogan had his WWF fans, and the Canadian audience is typically pro-WWF, but I do think Hogan's rep had been a little sullied at this point because of WCW. He was associated with a losing product. He would also always get booed heavily during highlight packages (a strange phenomenon for him in the latter days of his in-ring career, where he would get booed on the Jumbotron then cheered like crazy when he came out live). But anyway, most fans thought WCW sucked, and Hogan was the biggest, most pushed star they had.

 

Hogan overcame that at Mania and got a great reaction, so it's been a little forgotten that the Toronto match was really a rehab for him.

 

Rock is in a different position going into this show than Hogan was going into X-8.

[NintendoLogic]

But wasn't it true that WCW never had much penetration in Canada so to a significant portion of the Toronto audience, it was if Hogan had simply fallen off the face of the earth for nearly a decade?

[Loss]

WCW ran a show in Toronto in March of '99 that drew well. Hogan got way more cheers than he was getting at that point in time. I'm not saying no one called the response to Hogan a mile away. I am saying it wasn't something widely discussed as likely to happen prior to the match on message boards.

[Ricky Jackson]

But wasn't it true that WCW never had much penetration in Canada so to a significant portion of the Toronto audience, it was if Hogan had simply fallen off the face of the earth for nearly a decade?

WCW had pretty good TV penetration in Canada by 1997. I'm not sure of the exact date, but Nitro was on TSN prior to Hart signing. WCW was popular with wrestling fans in Canada during the Monday Night Wars period, partly because of the presence of the ex-WWF guys like Hogan, Savage, Hall, Nash, but also for the same reasons it was popular in the USA: NWO, cruiserweights, Goldberg, etc. TBS was common in Canada from about 1991 or so, as was WCW magazine and the action figures of the early 90s. WWF was always more important for fans because it hit big in Canada in the 80s while Crockett/early WCW was non-existant on TV (AWA was on TSN).

 

I'd wager that most fans in attendance at Mania 18 were aware of Hogan's WCW years. You also have to factor in Hogan's "special" connection with the Toronto fans (and Canadian fans in general) dating back to the 80's. The evening served as a sort of celebration for a returning hero, as Hogan had not preformed live in Canada, I think, in about ten years or so.

[rainmakerrtv]

WCW started on TSN shortly after Flair took the belt back from Sting in 1991 . Soon after he jumped to the WWF, TBS and WGN were added to my cable package. So for this Canadian, at that point there was more (and better) WCW programming available than there was at that point WWF programming.

[Loss]

Didn't Worldwide air in parts of Canada during the Crockett days? Did Pro Wrestling Plus show JCP footage?

[rainmakerrtv]

Didn't Worldwide air in parts of Canada during the Crockett days? Did Pro Wrestling Plus show JCP footage?

I can't speak for Canada as a whole, but here is how it went in my part of Ontario. For a brief run we did get some syndicated NWA Crockett wrestling around the time of the 3 Horsemen (post-Luger, pre-Windham). I don't know what original show it was from, it had American content but Canadian bumpers (including Leo Burke and Milt Avruskin). The matches I remember it showing were Barry Windham vs. Mike Rotundo for the TV title (which was a bit of a shock, as I was coming back to wrestling after having watched it between Wrestlemania 1 and 2 and was wondering what had happened to US Express, and here they were feuding with each other in another company), Ric Flair vs Ricky Santana (yes, I wondered if he was related to Tito Santana), and Dusty Rhodes vs Bobby Eaton in a cage (another shock, as we had just gotten some AWA programming and I had just gotten used to the Original Midnight Express being managed by some guy with a portable phone, and here was this other Midnight Express being managed by some guy with a tennis racket). They showed 4-8 weeks of NWA, then switched over to AWA programming for a few weeks, then for some reason switched back over to NWA but showed the same 4-8 weeks they had already broadcast, which had the paradox of showing the Powers Of Pain when they had already jumped to the WWF. After that, there was no more NWA on my local TV. When I visited my grandparents in Newfoundland that summer, their US cable came from detroit, so I did see an NWA show with more surprises like Barry Windham and Ron Garvin having turned heel. Apart from one more visit to my grandparents the next year (where I saw the Great Muta for the first time), I didn't see any more NWA/WCW TV until Power Hour came to TSN in 1991. I became addicted to the Apter mags trying to keep up with what was going on, and rented every NWA tape at the local video stores multiple times.

 

As for Pro Wrestling Plus, they rarely showed JCP footage, and when they did it was at least a year out of date. I remember them showing the Lex Luger Horsemen in an 8 man tag against 4 midcarders , but they were showing it in 1989-1990 . I do remember for some reason between shows TSN showed a couple of non WWF matches, but it was usually Lex taking the US Title from Nikita Koloff, which kept breaking my heart because I was a Nikita Fan (the other match they would show was, strangely, Steve Williams taking the UWF title from Big Bubba).

[Ricky Jackson]

Didn't Worldwide air in parts of Canada during the Crockett days? Did Pro Wrestling Plus show JCP footage?

From what I remember, and I might be totally wrong about this, Pro Westling Plus was only on TSN sporadically and always in different time slots, similar to the AWA show. It seems to me it was a hard show to follow regularly, although I do remember watching it quite a bit around 1986-87. Anyway, and this is based on 25 year old memories, the promotions I remember being featured on the show for sure were WCCW, Stampede, Florida, and maybe Memphis. I'm sure there were many others, but I don't remember Crockett. I can remember Luger being featured, but I'm pretty sure it was while he was still in Florida. Somebody else out there probably has much better info on the subject than I do.

 

As for Worldwide, I'm almost 100% sure it wasn't available in Calgary during the 80s, but I don't know about the rest of Canada...maybe in the east?. Of course, the Apter mags (and non-Apter mags) were widely available, so us Canadians could follow Crockett that way.

[Marty]

Didn't Worldwide air in parts of Canada during the Crockett days? Did Pro Wrestling Plus show JCP footage?

I can't remember seeing Worldwide during the Crockett days, but PWP absolutely did show JCP matches, usually they were the last thing on the show.

[rainmakerrtv]

Didn't Worldwide air in parts of Canada during the Crockett days? Did Pro Wrestling Plus show JCP footage?

From what I remember, and I might be totally wrong about this, Pro Westling Plus was only on TSN sporadically and always in different time slots, similar to the AWA show. It seems to me it was a hard show to follow regularly, although I do remember watching it quite a bit around 1986-87. Anyway, and this is based on 25 year old memories, the promotions I remember being featured on the show for sure were WCCW, Stampede, Florida, and maybe Memphis. I'm sure there were many others, but I don't remember Crockett. I can remember Luger being featured, but I'm pretty sure it was while he was still in Florida. Somebody else out there probably has much better info on the subject than I do.

 

As for Worldwide, I'm almost 100% sure it wasn't available in Calgary during the 80s, but I don't know about the rest of Canada...maybe in the east?. Of course, the Apter mags (and non-Apter mags) were widely available, so us Canadians could follow Crockett that way.

 

Quite right about Pro Wrestling Plus. As for the Apter mags (and others), there were loads of them in magazine stores and grocery stores but I got the feeling I was the only one reading them of any consistency. Among my peers, I always seemed to be the only one who had any idea about non WWF wrestling and didn't dismiss it out of hand. I found it hard to understand, WWF programming at the time was pretty much all squash matches, so any other shows would have at least more potential for something interesting happening. As late as 1997, when the NWO was in full bloom, I remember having a conversation with fellow wrestling fans (some of whom were older than me) and they were completely ignorant of any non-WWF wrestling before the NWO, even with it having been on TSN since early 91, and their views were completely canalized by WWF history.

[Loss]

I wonder how things might have been different if Crockett didn't lose Mapleleaf Gardens in the early 80s.

[jdw]

He wouldn't have been able to sustain it. It's not an easy treck to a regional promotion that far south to make, or build anything while also running your own territory. Send up your own syndicated or studio shows? I just don't think JCP at the time could have pulled it off: very much ahead of the times there.

 

Tunney was smart. Saw the likely victor, and hitched a wagon.

 

John

[Ricky Jackson]

Didn't Worldwide air in parts of Canada during the Crockett days? Did Pro Wrestling Plus show JCP footage?

From what I remember, and I might be totally wrong about this, Pro Westling Plus was only on TSN sporadically and always in different time slots, similar to the AWA show. It seems to me it was a hard show to follow regularly, although I do remember watching it quite a bit around 1986-87. Anyway, and this is based on 25 year old memories, the promotions I remember being featured on the show for sure were WCCW, Stampede, Florida, and maybe Memphis. I'm sure there were many others, but I don't remember Crockett. I can remember Luger being featured, but I'm pretty sure it was while he was still in Florida. Somebody else out there probably has much better info on the subject than I do.

 

As for Worldwide, I'm almost 100% sure it wasn't available in Calgary during the 80s, but I don't know about the rest of Canada...maybe in the east?. Of course, the Apter mags (and non-Apter mags) were widely available, so us Canadians could follow Crockett that way.

 

Quite right about Pro Wrestling Plus. As for the Apter mags (and others), there were loads of them in magazine stores and grocery stores but I got the feeling I was the only one reading them of any consistency. Among my peers, I always seemed to be the only one who had any idea about non WWF wrestling and didn't dismiss it out of hand. I found it hard to understand, WWF programming at the time was pretty much all squash matches, so any other shows would have at least more potential for something interesting happening. As late as 1997, when the NWO was in full bloom, I remember having a conversation with fellow wrestling fans (some of whom were older than me) and they were completely ignorant of any non-WWF wrestling before the NWO, even with it having been on TSN since early 91, and their views were completely canalized by WWF history.

 

Yeah, the mags were everywhere, and I had my dad buy me a ton of them, but I don't remember my friends having any. In the 80s, it seemed like everybody my age (8-11, and even a few girls!) had at least a passing interest in wrestling, especially WWF because it was so ubiquitous, but also Stampede as it aired back to back with WWF on Saturday afternoons. I even knew a few AWA fans. WCW fans? In the early 90s my best friend and I watched it on TBS and followed in the mags, but overall I would agree that it seemed like most Canadian wrestling fans had little or no awareness of WCW pre-Monday Night Wars. Of course, wrestling being extremely uncool prior to 1997 didn't help. Most wrestling fans I knew in the late 90s were people who had loved it as kids in the 80s but had essentially missed the 1991-1997 era completely.

[FLIK]

Dave was talking on yesterday's Observer Radio like this is going to happen. He also said that they'll probably try to get Rock to wrestle at Rumble.

Didn't get that vibe from the show myself. Seemed more like Meltzer was saying that it wasn't a given at all but spent a lot of time fantasy booking how it could work if done right then Alvarez jumped in with his usual "don't trust em not to fuck it up" spieal and brought up how if they got him for SS they'd probably have him do Rumble and a bunch of other stuff too. Dave did say for sure that Rock was open to doing more shows after Mania later in the year as well.

[khawk20]

From what I remember, and I might be totally wrong about this, Pro Westling Plus was only on TSN sporadically and always in different time slots, similar to the AWA show. It seems to me it was a hard show to follow regularly, although I do remember watching it quite a bit around 1986-87. Anyway, and this is based on 25 year old memories, the promotions I remember being featured on the show for sure were WCCW, Stampede, Florida, and maybe Memphis. I'm sure there were many others, but I don't remember Crockett. I can remember Luger being featured, but I'm pretty sure it was while he was still in Florida. Somebody else out there probably has much better info on the subject than I do.

I think you've got it right, although I had a big c-band dish so my viewing was all over the place anyways.

 

I do remember never getting TBS in Thunder Bay for some reason having to do with the tv/radio monopoly in this town that has been in place forever, yet a town of 2000 45 minutes up the road got TBS and a bunch of other good stations in the clear all the time.

 

This was a serious issue with be before we got the dish.

[Ditch]

http://www.411mania.com/siteimages/rockback_115991.png

 

1. Way to spoil the plot, guys.

 

2. If Rock isn't wrestling, then it's VERY false advertising.

[shawmic]

Dave says on today's Breaking News Audio that the Survivor Series main event is a 4 on 4 elimination match with Rock/Cena/Punk/Sheamus vs. Miz/Truth/Rio/someone else. Him and Bryan claim the whole Survivor Series lineup is basically set but nothing is set for even Hell In A Cell in two weeks. Bryan runs down the rest of the card: Big Show and Kane returning, maybe Undertaker will return but probably not, and "We've also got more Survivor Series matches likely involving the Divas." Huge scoop there.

 

So of course 30 minutes later WWE.com announces: "WWE sources have confirmed that The Rock and John Cena will be a part of a Traditional 5-on-5 Survivor Series Tag Team Match."

 

THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS~!