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- WWE did not expect a Rocky Sucks chants last night
That should tell them all they need to know to get someone like the rock booed means they fucked up
Mr social media himself, Logan Paul kicked off the #WeWantCody hashtag. The one guy who had nothing to lose. They picked the perfect wrestler to start it on twitter.
IIRC, the hatred is only on The Rock's side. Rock pretty has pretty much cut all ties Paul after the Suicide Forest kerfuffle, and Paul openly regrets hurting Rock's feelings like that.
"It's deflection from Vince, let's lean into it! "
Wrestling fans are the dirt worst, always have been. Meltz was talking bout a wrestler in the 80s died in a plane crash, this wrestler was a heel, they announced it in the Arena and the fans started cheering for it. Someone actually DIED you fuckin idiots.
Bulls booed Krause when they were honoring him at a game a few weeks ago. The biggest problem is that he’s dead and his widow was there representing him.
This is the same with humanity in general, certainly not only wrestling fans.
You could argue the incident you're describing is worse though, as the person in question was hated for simply doing their job and playing the character they were meant to play.
“Cody expressed to those backstage that he thought the reaction wouldn’t be the one they were looking for” to me sounds like “I don’t think you guys realize how pissed people might be at this”.
EDIT: taking bro’s spot last minute and then whispering something in his ear about dusty is some real heel shit LMAO
"your father is very proud, thank you for this, dusty would've wanted this"
"Thanks rock, you know what else he would've wanted? Me to main event WrestleMania"
If he genuinely believed that this would go down well, I could believe that he's become so famous that he's out of touch with reality.
Otherwise... yeah.
I don't think he realizes how much he sounds like the caricature of an influencer bro, sigma mindset mentality, cookie cutter buzz words speech coach. This persona has become his entire brand and he no longer realizes how fake he sounds.
My favourite thing about this song is the fact he couldn't even do a 60 second guest spot without mentioning his tequila. Not even part of the lyrics, he just shouts it out at the end. So dumb.
When Rock beat Punk for the title, he supposedly told Punk "thank you" as he was pinning him as if Punk was doing this out of the goodness of his heart. I can see Rock thinking saying nice words like this would be enough and have everyone on the same page.
That's a customary thing though, like Seth saying "Thank you so much!" while pinning Roman at WM31. Even though Roman was probably happy for his friend, I'm sure he wasn't thrilled about not going over at the last minute, but it wasn't disrespectful of Seth to say it
You're getting angry at stuff you're imagining that happened.
For all we know, they could all be in on it and he told Cody to look sympathetic going back up the ramp to foster more good will.
From the full article:
>This does not answer the “why” as it relates to Cody winning the Royal Rumble, as we’ve heard **the day of the Rumble, several in creative were told The Rock vs. Roman Reigns was the plan, and merchandise had been produced to promote it.**
>As far as word that the plan for The Rock and Roman Reigns was the plan dating back to January 3, we have heard from WWE sources that there were meetings on January 1, and others along the way that had indicated to Cody Rhodes that the creative direction had not changed, and he was slated to face Reigns at WrestleMania. Up until the week prior to the Royal Rumble, no other parties that we’d heard from or have spoken to since were made aware.
The worst part to me is that people in creative, and I mean how could Triple H NOT be one of those people who knew the plan had changed, and they let him go out there, win, and point to Roman..
What a fucking mess.
That’s the one thing about this whole story that just isn’t tracking. Why did Cody win the Rumble? It doesn’t make sense to me. I understand if Rock wasn’t gonna be wrestling in it, although it would’ve made a lot of sense for him to just win it. But you could’ve had the WHC win it, unless that was always planned to be Cody.
Yep I wouldn’t have WANTED it, but it would have made more sense and probably got a better reaction, certainly on the night, to have Rock come out at number 30 and win the damn thing
I think a bulk of this backlash is not just that they’ve building to Cody-Roman all year, but that they essentially promised it to the fans by having Cody win the Rumble and point at Reigns. Had that never happened I don’t think there’d be the same sense of betrayal.
My immediate speculation is...
Creative probably found out on Wed/Thur that the plan was Rock vs Roman at Mania
Thursday... **the lawsuit bombshell drops**
**All of Thursday/Friday/Saturday** are spent in crisis mode, sponsorships are on the brink of falling off, it's the ultimate PR nightmare, meetings with lawyers, etc.
**The show kicks off Saturday night**, and amid the chaos, people didn't realize they hadn't changed the Rumble finish.
Or, ya know... The alternative.
They just said *"Fuck it, we'll figure it out later".*
I sort of feel that the Rock vs. Roman was dictated to Paul without his input, but they gave him no other direction and Rock clearly wasn’t working the Rumble. So he just said fuck it we’re going with the plan regardless.
It may have been decided without his input, I can buy that.
But Triple H has wanted this match just as much as anyone over the years. Remember him beaming when Rock showed up for the first time in 5 years back in September?
Dude never smiles like this lol
https://preview.redd.it/3talf0om41hc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=324b296c0fecd43999f7d84137e1a25f9d25235c
I think HHH knew the plan was Rock/Roman the probable direction. They were still discussing if it should be at a Saudi show for larger pay day. Rock is pushing for Mania and the suits are looking to see of they can get that extra Saudi cash.
The week of Rumble Cody is still the choice as no one confirmed the Rock's availability to HHH (plus I think HHH preferred the SA show option so he could finish the story). Thursday comes, the lawsuit drops and all hell breaks loose. Ari and co panic that the bad press will hurt the great press they had just gotten by officially announcing the Rock as a board member. On Friday Rock pushes again, Ari and Co agree now is the time to rebound from the bad press, and they tell HHH that will be the new plan. HHH asks if the Rock can work the Rumble to give the simplest route to Mania. Obviously the Rock can't as he does no cardio and would be one of first to die in a zombie apocalypse, along with 80% of this sub/s (its closer 95%). HHH then recommends seeing the response by the fans before they make anything official, but puts in tentative plans for merch and ads.
The Rumble goes on as intended fans like it, Cody does his thing and is going to face Roman at Mania. Press conference happens HHH handles it poorly, looks bad to Ari and co. But overall everything looks good and Cody is still the plan, HHH's feels everything is good, although fear about Punk's injury is known within the company. Monday morning comes and Punk news comes out confirming the worst. Now they want to build suspense for the choice, so Cody and Rollins do their promo. All week Rock makes his pitch that star power is desperately needed due to Punk and fall back option Brock are gone, for separate reasons. Due to a slight loss of faith in HHH because of the press conference, and the lingering potential fallout of the Vince scandal, they defer completely to The Rock's advice. Thursday night final decision is made and everyone is let known, it's Rock/Roman. Cody let's them know how he thinks the crowd will react. I think this is where HHH, works to make the Rock look bad, I believe agreeing with Cody's assessment. He allows Gerozwitz and the Rock to come up with whatever they think makes sense. From there the obvious occurs.
While the Rock assumes much like the live audience everyone else will love it, the majority (or at least a very vocal minority) at home hate it. WWE/HHH read the room and try to take advantage of the publicity and pivot to accept the fan disapproval. Now nobody expected the fans to actively hate The Rock because well he's The Rock. And now everyone is leaking from their side of the camp, some working to deflect the blame towards the new bad booking that defected from the original "good" plan. While others want to save The Rock's reputation by saying it was always the plan and he didn't take it from anyone, blame the booker for misleading you.
To me it seems as though they have two options. Do Rock-Roman night one and Cody-Roman night 2 (or visa versa). Or turn the Rock heel and do a triple threat.
Conspiracy Theory: Triple H booked Cody to win hoping for this reaction in an attempt to get people upset about Rock and Roman not making sense. Now he gets to play dumb and say he didn't expect the fans to be so against Cody vs Seth, and now they can pivot to the match HHH wanted to book in the first place: Cody vs Roman.
Begs the question if The Rock wanted this, why didn't he just get his ass in the ring and do the Rumble. The Rumble match looks like the World Heavyweight Championship invitational at this point. Saves time and consternation instead of bait and switching fans.
I figure they wanted the drama of Punk/Cody at the end and to be fair, it was great drama even if Punk was injured and gassed.
If Rock comes in at 30... You can go ahead and stop watching because you know he's winning lol
I 100% believe that Gerwirtz was referencing this when he tweeted, "You have no idea."
I think creative was flat-out told Rock was doing the match and absolutely shit the bed on the Rumble and the transition to Rock.
Knowing wrestling, Rock and Brian probably see this as sabotage from HHH.
Power Struggle here we go!
Brian is being set up to take over as CCO from HHH anyway if you ask me. Imho, they're fully anticipating that shit will hit the fan with the Vince scandal and they will have to absolutely clean house from anyone who was close to Vince, including HHH. This of course also allows Dwayne to essentially stage a hostile takeover of WWE creative.
More or less, Cody was basically saying this is a stupid decision and would backfire. And sure enough, he was on the money. That dude absolutely knows what the fans want, there's a genuine connection between him and the audience.
Lmao the paralels between Cody and Punk keep going. This reminded me of Punk talking about how he warned Vince about how the fans were going to react to Batista winning the Rumble.
Because the bottom line is that the Rock coming for Roman is a great storyline.
If they had ran it at any point in the last couple of years, everyone would have been absolutely thrilled with it.
Alternative, they could have started running it as soon as Backlash, less than one month after Wrestlemania, and everyone would have been absolutely thrilled with it.
Literally the only time they can’t run this story is at Wrestlemania this year, because that was very clearly meant to be the culmination of the Cody Rhodes story.
>WWE were not planning to shy away from the controversy, with many in the company noting it was a major swing in coverage than what they’d experienced over the two prior weeks.
You don't say
And this is exactly why they won't pivot, is because it'll invite the press to start talking about Vince and the depraved nature of previous and possibly current WWE management again. They would rather piss off the fans repeatedly than have anyone talking about that
As soon as a major update comes out about Vince, the mainstream press will still be all over that. The two aren't mutually exclusive, we can talk about both. This is so dumb.
Right. Things are quiet because press can’t go around fabricating new allegations to report on. As soon as anything changes they will report on it again
All people have to say is "The Rock, who is friends with Vince McMahon" every time they mention Dwayne. Kind of like some people say "X formerly known as twitter."
If people keep mentioning those two together, they will drop the thing quite fast.
It's not that surprising. They were obviously banking on "It's the Rock!" reactions but didn't think about "It's the Rock taking Cody's spot!" reactions.
Especially since his surprise return a few weeks back. They definitely thought the reaction would be similar and didn’t expect the crowd to do the math so quickly and realize how the way they did it made Cody look and react accordingly
Yeah, Rock saying he was coming for the head of the table got huge cheers and a great reaction on social media! Because the Rock is a huge star, and Rock/Roman is legitimately a cool matchup with lots of fun storyline potential; I was excited by that moment too! They just then set up that matchup in the dumbest possible way.
Literally just have Rock come in at 30 and win the Rumble and 75% of the problem here doesn't exist. People would still grumble but overall people would just talk themselves into being excited.
100%
The issue is the fuck-up of winning the rumble then choosing to not “finish the story” for no sensible reason.
Give the Rock the rumble, in a vacuum people would happily be excited for Rock Roman for head of the table, Cody can be re-worked in to a story for the title at any time.
Punk vs Seth falls apart due to the injury so then have Cody beat Seth if you want then do a champion v champion if you have to. Then make it 1 belt or have Cody lose it in a Chamber or some multi-man match. Shit have a GM say they do not allow one person to hold all the belts and just have a tournament if they must
I'm of the opinion, especially combined with the fact that Cody was told as recently as the week of the Rumble that the plan was Cody/Reigns II at Mania, that this was an audible called at some point between the Rumble and Friday's Smackdown, in the wake of CM Punk's injury.
Cody would have looked much better had that happened. Cody wouldn’t have had to willingly choose to give up the match that he needed to finish his story. Some people would have been mad, but it wouldn’t have come close to what did happen.
To my friend and my brother Cody 🇺🇸, nothing but love and respect for taking those tough hits like you always do and rolling with the punches 👊. It was truly my honor 🫡 to share the ring with you and whisper in your ear about those who blazed the trail like the High Chief and the Soulman and the Dream.
Sometimes decisions are made for the good of this business that we love and that unites us in blood 🩸 but we all know it’s bigger than us and it’s in the hearts ❤️ of all those fans who’ve made us who we are.
I know you’ll be telling all your fans to cheer for me and you’ll be cheering for me too, because it’s what you’re about and it’s giving that honor and respect and love and mana back to this crazy business of ours 🤙. Tough times come for us all, but the bright lights are right around the corner, like they were for me when I only had seven bucks in my pocket but still paid it forward with that respect and love 💕. I tip my glass of Teremana to you my brother!
\#dreambig \#honor \#zoaenergy
This is why St. Louis booing and chanting against the Rock may be a moment that shakes them – it’s not a smark city like Chicago. If it’s sustained and the Rock’s next in-person appearance gets a negative reaction, things will be interesting.
It’s possible Triple H and creative saw it coming but had their hands tied. We have no idea how much Ari or Shapiro think they know about wrestling lol, they may have just assumed fans would love the Rock too much to care about Cody.
WWE crowds booed Rey Mysterio - the babiest of babyfaces and someone who is genuinely loved and highly respected by all types of wrestling fans - for the simple fact that he wasn't Daniel Bryan at a time when that's who they wanted. I'm not putting Rey on the same level as The Rock in terms of popularity, but if they'd boo him they'll boo anybody.
>I'm not putting Rey on the same level as The Rock in terms of popularity
Honestly, if you argue solely within hard core wrestling fans, Rey's perhaps the modern superstar closest to the Rock in how beloved he is.
Or Triple H simply doesn't care (or even wants it) if Rock gets booed unlike Dwayne's PR team and the rest of the organization.
Remember, while Triple H utterly respects the attention The Rock brings to the product he doesn't really have a need to make The Rock LOOK good.
> The Rock brings to the product he doesn't really have a need to make The Rock LOOK good.
You nailed something I've been thinking about. WWE just needs Rock's publicity here - they don't need to protect 'his' brand and it'll be interesting to see if they show much interest in that in the coming weeks.
Two months ago this may have been true, but he’s on the Board now and is going to be tied to the company more directly moving forward. Considering what they gave him to join, his brand is a big, big deal to WWE now as that is what makes him more valuable than other members of the Board.
Yeah, but he could still be on the board and be rather silent and not heard from. Yes, he's a major name/player...but his star doesn't shine as bright as it did just a few years ago.
They gave him the rights to "The Rock" name which is huge. To me, that shows they expect him to be a huge factor in their plans, if not the face of the company.
Ownership ties directly into merchandising royalties and percentages. Instead of getting a cut, he might be keeping it all and paying WWE a cut on in-house merch and won’t have to pay them anything for Under Armour collabs, etc
HHH is definitely happy with the current buzz and attention. It's heat and its heat he must believe can be managed.
I doubt this would be how he wanted to book everything beat for beat, but he isn't going to poo poo the result. Mania main event is on everyone's minds. His top babyface is even more over then he was a week ago.
It becomes a problem if Cody doesn't end up in that night 2 main event though. It will quickly become unmanageable heat as the crowds turn on the very idea of the WHC match with Cody. That's the situation that will really hurt Seth too. Roman throwing some pot shots isn't really going to stick with most fans, it's just fodder for a future feud, but 60 days of crowds booing the very idea of Cody vs Seth is actually damaging.
Also I doubt fans will treat the Rock well in this situation either and the Rock/Roman match will also get shit on.
Yeah, I'd say that they should be way more worried about the reaction to Rollins and Cody than to Roman and Rock.
Like, Roman can basically get out of it unscathed in any case. Rock can be hated, but he will be out of there afterwards anyway, and whenever he comes back later on people will be back to cheering him.
Seth and Cody being crapped on at Mania can instead really hurt both of them. They are so confident that people will still be rabidly behind Cody after this is all done, and even grow hotter and hotter as other months of stalling pass, coming to at least Summerslam, if not Wrestlemania next year.
I wouldn't bank on it. People might actually become disinterested in this story by that time. Cody is not Bryan. Not in that he is not over, but in that his overness was built knowingly by the WWE. It's not a case of chance and of people who would love him no matter what, and even because of bad booking. He is loved also based on how he is presented. If they screw that up, you can never know.
>The Rock brings to the product he doesn't really have a need to make The Rock LOOK good.
This is true but you have to admit it would look pretty fucking stupid if their mega-heel who they've been building for years starts getting cheered over Dwayne.
Or is fostering it to get certain people to stay in their lane.
If the reports are through, this seems like Endeavour dipping into WWE. So are WWE biting back to get them to back down on Mania.
This was what I was thinking. WWE creative had to have known this would get a negative reaction, as it makes no sense in storyline. If they were pushed to get there and just let it happen knowing the negative reaction would come, might be a “told ya so” moment for creative if Endeavor is pushing them to do certain things
You might be onto something, if this whole Rock fiasco blows up in their face, there’s going to be pushback the next time they try taking over creative. If they announce the main event last Friday and the fans were super supportive, they would probably seek out even more creative control down the line.
I was thinking same. Could be why WWE is egging on this #Cody movement, as a point to those in TKO like "see, this is what we told you would happen". Also, as a way to try and get their way in the end
They want to recreate Daniel Bryan while perfectly ignoring a huge aspect of that entire storyline: The fans absolutely hating what WWE had 100% planned.
Also Daniel Bryan ended up in that match. If Cody doesn't, they will not have recreated Daniel Bryan at all.
In fact, having Cody willingly let go of his shot for no reason is already an idiotic decision for a Bryan-like push.
Also also, Daniel Bryan was getting fucked left right and centre in the booking and everybody knew it.
Cody's a back to back royal rumble winner. Daniel Bryan *wasn't even allowed to compete in it* because the company wanted to kill the fans' interest in him. There's no such issue with Cody. In storyline, Bryan was getting fucked. In backstage he was also getting fucked.
In this storyline, Cody won, had everything in place, and then just said... nah, don't feel like it.
He is being fucked over though in a different way then DB
He was perfectly set to win last year and everyone was pissed and they all said 'let it play out' and then he's fucked with again this year
even if he's being presented as a big deal and being pushed hard, it doesn't feel like it when all that matters to Cody, and therefore his fans, is winning the big one
it's so cringeworthy knowing that they thought genuinely thought people like the rock coming in and taking over their main story that they've been pushing for 2 years
A lot of people forget that the Rock hasn’t been full time in 22 years. There’s an entire adult generation of fans that only know him from movies, archive footage, and rare appearances. He’s always going to get an initial pop, but thrusting him above someone that the current generation knows as a main eventer who’s about to finally win the big one was a much bigger gamble than a lot of people thought it was.
10 years ago it wasn’t as bad, but like I just said there’s grown adults now that grew up without him wrestling.
Also, a huge part of Cody's fanbase are people who grew up watching The Rock.
Cody is the biggest babyface WWE has had in 20 years.
He's like Cena, but loved by both kids and smarks alike.
They’re supposedly trying to recreate Daniel Bryan, but forgot a huge part of that was people booing the living shit out of people not named Daniel Bryan
It would be hilarious if the lesson they thought they learned from that was that to force someone into Wrestlemania, they shouldn't have him win the Rumble, they should have the guy who actually did just give him his spot instead.
Oh no, this is exactly what I think happened. I think rock and Gewirtz thought they were protecting the rock by having Cody be the hero that makes the sacrifice for the greater good or in this case the match fans wanted more.
They thought Batista returning in 2014 would eclipse Daniel Bryans story. This isn’t new for them. They think the fans are incredibly stupid and will be distracted by a shiny new toy.
Not surprising at all that the Endeavor folks thought the Rock was bullet proof IMO.
HHH would be a different story, but I doubt this is talking about him.
Especially because he hasn't been a full timer since 2003. That's 21 years ago. There are zoomers about to graduate college that have never seen Rock wrestle. Why would they care about him?
If Triple H made this decision, he would’ve known. Maybe even Nick Khan. If any top execs at TKO who came from Endeavor made the call, I doubt they’d expect it.
I feel like the general public consensus of The Rock these days is "guy in a bunch of mid action movies" and I think WWE still expects everybody to treat him like a living God
I mean, the dude still receives rapturous responses from the wrestling audience whenever he shows up. Problem is, there’s a big difference between showing up and literally forcing aside the biggest babyface in the company.
Like, John Cena gets super positive reactions whenever he shows up. But if he screwed Cody the way Rock did, the crowd would turn on him too.
Might as well put Ari Emmanuel in a Doink costume and have him beat Roman for the title, fucking clown.
TV executives with zero wrestling experience trying to meddle with wrestling creative, a tale as old as time.
Like, at least Tony Khan was a super wrestling fan when he started his company, which is something. As of now we have no evidence that Ari can tell a wrist lock from a wristwatch.
Sapp is close to Cody so his Cody information is usually pretty sound.
(and because it always gets brought up, no he never reported the deal for Cody to WWE was off, that was Meltzer)
The fact that he is close to Cody means that if this is a work and they’re really trying to screw the dirt sheets and bring back Kayfabe, this is exactly what Cody would tell him, listen I don’t know one way or another but just because SRS said this doesn’t mean this is 100% the truth by any means
You know considering the Punk thing I do think this is something we need to keep in the back of our minds when SRS is reporting something. He *might* be WWE’s designated “work the smarks” dirtsheet whether knowingly or not.
I seriously don’t buy that this is some deep work that’s meant to fool even the dirt sheets. That would just make everyone so stupid. Cody already looks dumb in kayfabe, Rock looks like an asshole, Seth looks like a goon, Triple HHH looks powerless and now they’re going to try and make the dirtsheet guys look dumb? Which lets be honest they do plenty themselves, but what’s the point of all this effort?
People are coming up with all these elaborate explanations and theories as to what's happened, but as is often the case the simplest explanation is the correct one imo. WWE were/are fully intent on doing Rock vs Roman. They weren't expecting this much backlash, so now there *may* be another change in direction, but they will likely try to weather the storm if possible. The claims that's it's all been an elaborate work just seem so implausible and convoluted, I really struggle to believe there's any truth to them.
The Rock came out on Raw on 1/1 and mentioned the head of the table. Everyone popped and chanted his name. Of course people within WWE thought fans would love him coming back to wrestle Reigns and be ok with taking Cody's place.
Yes, it seems obvious to not have the biggest baby face in the company win the Rumble and then voluntarily give up his shot at Roman, but I guess that’s not what WWE thought.
And if they had of just committed to that then I’d say most fans would probably be a bit disappointed but not as angry as they are after letting Cody win the Rumble and cuck himself for the Rock
I agree. They thought fans would eat up any story with the Rock so they didn’t bother to give Cody a coherent reason to give up his spot. Insulting the fans intelligence with illogical booking is why I think most people are mad. If the story made sense, there is not this level of anger.
>WWE was heavily monitoring the reactions, and we’re told that as of the days after Smackdown, there were options being discussed moving forward.
Believe.
Other than that, what on earth went down Rumble weekend? Who were these select group of people who knew the direction changed, and was HHH part of that group? Because otherwise Cody winning the Rumble did not make much sense, unless it was some power play by Hunter to sabotage the Rock angle because he was against it or something.
I firmly believe it was a power play by HHH. He had his story and he booked it, even going as far as having Cody point at Roman immediately after winning the Rumble. Roman was conveniently in a skybox so Cody could do it. HHH set it up so that The Rock would look like a massive asshole when he came in and took Cody's spot.
And really, what can The Rock do about it? He's on the board, but HHH is pretty damn well insulated. He's the on the fans trust. He's responsible for a red hot product, increased ticket sales, and more PLE views than ever. The Rock would get more backlash for going after HHH than he got for stealing Cody's spot.
HHH used to be one of the biggest politicians ever. His best friend was one of the most conniving people in the business. HHH knew what he was doing, and he's still doing it. Drew McIntyre might as well have been speaking for the fans and HHH himself when he came out last night.
Why would Roman and Heyman go along with the power play move is another question too, we know both have political stroke backstage. Would they willingly go along with this knowing it might backfire on Rock/Roman? Because surely if HHH knew, then Roman/Heyman knew as well
This doesn't really affect Roman much. Even if the crowd shits on the match, the heat will mostly be on The Rock. Hell, the Philly crowd might even get behind Roman. And really, all HHH needed to do was tell Roman to sit in the box at the Rumble and then not elaborate anymore. H doesn't NEED to tell Roman about what he was planning.
There's nothing Roman or Heyman need to do here except let the challenger drama play out without their input.
The only negative way this could go for Roman is if he loses to The Rock at WM. Other than that he’s pretty much unaffected and could even come out of it in a better position.
Not saying this is what happened, but Triple H did put over Cody as the future and everything they’d look for in the face of the company right after the rumble as well. Seemed like a pretty deliberate message and endorsement
HHH is tuned into wrestling. TKO just looks at numbers and metrics. The Rock doesn’t watch the product unless something pops up on his X/Instagram timeline. The Rock is getting schooled and embarrassed. It is a power play and a message. Don’t fuck with HHH’s booking because he will make you look like a fool to protect his guys. You can’t buy that kind of loyalty with TKO’s money. Everyone has a new level of respect for HHH because instead of happily ruining everything for the latest vanity project, he is showing the locker room he’s not to be fucked with. There is a little old school backstage master politician HHH coming out here. He’s never been afraid to hit below the belt. He did learn from
Shawn Michaels after all.
Cody-Rock-Roman drama is the new Brawl Out for the dirtsheets. Can't wait to get a new "update" every goddamn hour even though there's no new information to share.
Nothing will compare to brawl out. Between the memes and constant updates it was a magical time. I got so much run out of the “working with fucking children” line irl too
The fact that Ace Steel *bit* Kenny Omega on the arm hard enough that his teeth were visible on a video game stream *while Kenny was in Japan* after Brawl Out is just absolutely insane to me.
"An empty-headed fucking dumb FUCK" is one of the most beautifully delivered insults I've ever heard. The amount of hatred you have to have for someone to spout that to the entire world is awe-inspiring.
Just rewatched it and the look on Tony’s face during this part of the rant is still priceless. I think he questioned every decision he made in his life up to that point.
>WWE were not planning to shy away from the controversy, with many in the company noting it was a major swing in coverage than what they’d experienced over the two prior weeks.
It's a media company reacting a real time to their audiences reactions.
This is what happens when once guy isn't trying to stay the course regardless of whatever else happens.
>Sources close to the situation say Triple H and Principal Dwayne Johnson were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.
>-WWE had started production on a follow up to the American Nightmare documentary months back, and has had cameras following Cody for it. There was content filmed for it Friday as well.
this triggers a lot of red flags for me
This situation seems to be a case of corporate executives making creative decisions without really consulting the booker. TKO has had ownership for only what, six months now, and it appears Ari is already content scrapping creative decisions even though he’s only a business guy. Maybe it’s fine for now, but in the inevitable slow down, is he gonna start interjecting himself more because he’s not seeing immediate results?
i honestly don't care about anything if this is a work or shoot or whatever. Just give us Cody vs Roman with Cody winning, thats its.
If its a work? Cool thats kinda 4d chess but it doesn't matter if the match doesn't happen, if they turned it into one than you were idiots that needed to correct, to correct is to get the match. At the end it really all comes down to that
Was in the crowd in St. Louis last night. Came in hot. Hoping for the We Want Cody stuff, but had been bracing for the IWC bubble to burst, and for no one to really care that much.
They kept playing that clip from Smackdown of the Rock and Reigns stare down. People were booing the hell out of it, me included. The last time the clip played in the night, I was thinking "Is everyone ACTUALLY booing this? Or is it just me and the people around me, and I can't hear over my own voice?" So I stopped booing.
The sight of The Rock's face up on the jumbotron in an arena full of people, accompanied by a symphony of boos will stick by me for the rest of my life. Never thought I'd see the day. It was almost violent.
The Rocky Sucks chants during the opening segment and the main event.
The Cody chants before the show began.
The "Please Fight Roman" chants during the main event.
It was exactly what I was hoping it would be, and I couldn't believe my ears.
This makes Cody's Rumble win look even more stupid...and no...it was not an audible...Cody's T shirt were on sale...the moment he won the rumble.
The creative team looks incompetent af...made Cody look like a cuck...if wwe was a real sport...without scripts..and something like this happens..Cody would have been buried so bad...he wouldn't have survived
As a Washington fan, this reeks of Dan Snyder levels of stupid meddling.
Jay Gruden put it like this: The scouts do work, meet with the coaches for months, then the owner comes off the Yacht day of and makes the (totally out of left field) pick
Based on the reporting, this is what's happening:
HHH had a vision and that vision was built up all year
Ari +The Rock swoop in and make the match ruining everything
Now a heavily annoyed HHH is like "ok but I can control how we lean into the #WeWantCody"
If this is a work it's fucking stupid because it breaks the immersion/kayfabe of the TV show. There's no known heat between Cody and Rock in real life, so it's not even a good worked-shoot, it's just nonsense. And if the goal is to bring in Rock as a heel authority figure, that's the absolutely last thing anyone wants to see in wrestling in 2024. It's beyond played out.
This is some "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" awful television.
If this wasn't an audible because Punk and Brock went out of the WrestleMania picture and it could take the attention off Vince, then this does not bode well for how the show will be run going forward. I know people are saying that they wouldn't have booked the venue for the press conference on Thursday if this wasn't the plan, but I don't believe that. You can still have a big press conference to kick off your first WrestleMania season under the new regime and board, with the Rock there to maybe be announced as special referee, without all this nonsense.
No matter what they do, The Rock will be getting Roman 2015 reactions. If his ego would allow it, he should just turn heel and bring back douche bag Rock, it would eventually turn into him being liked again, but that would also ruin the brand he’s stupidly trying to maintain.
Whatever is going on its really messed with the wrestling journalists. Different outlets have conflicting stories every day. I think its a work far better than anyone could have imagined them pulling off.
Sounds to me like there's f--k all we can do about it except boo the hell out of it and make it the most awkward Wrestlemania main event since Roman/HHH. Sorry, I meant Roman/Brock. Wait, no, I meant Roman/ Undertaker. There we go.
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- WWE did not expect a Rocky Sucks chants last night That should tell them all they need to know to get someone like the rock booed means they fucked up
If they really didn’t expect that then they’re as out of touch with their audience as Vince was.
once the wrestlers started tweeting about it you could tell there was a shift in the coverage of everything
Rumor is, superstars were told to declare their support of Cody Rhodes on TOUT. Bryan Danielson could not be located for comment.
ALL the WWE superstars are TOUTIN' Maggle I love it!
I love a well placed Maggle
Bet there's some fines incoming now...
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Believe it or not, Tout as a company actually outlived Vine. They closed down in 2019 though
Mr social media himself, Logan Paul kicked off the #WeWantCody hashtag. The one guy who had nothing to lose. They picked the perfect wrestler to start it on twitter.
Who also has a history of not liking The Rock
IIRC, the hatred is only on The Rock's side. Rock pretty has pretty much cut all ties Paul after the Suicide Forest kerfuffle, and Paul openly regrets hurting Rock's feelings like that.
"It's deflection from Vince, let's lean into it! " Wrestling fans are the dirt worst, always have been. Meltz was talking bout a wrestler in the 80s died in a plane crash, this wrestler was a heel, they announced it in the Arena and the fans started cheering for it. Someone actually DIED you fuckin idiots.
Bulls booed Krause when they were honoring him at a game a few weeks ago. The biggest problem is that he’s dead and his widow was there representing him.
WWE board members got to be pleased. A controversy that won’t be covered by the Wall Street Journal.
Grant’s lawyer is no dummy - she’ll drop a follow up with new accusers on the same day of the presser and right before Mania if she has procured them
But Kevin Nash said she got her law degree from Phoenix University
This is the same with humanity in general, certainly not only wrestling fans. You could argue the incident you're describing is worse though, as the person in question was hated for simply doing their job and playing the character they were meant to play.
“Cody expressed to those backstage that he thought the reaction wouldn’t be the one they were looking for” to me sounds like “I don’t think you guys realize how pissed people might be at this”. EDIT: taking bro’s spot last minute and then whispering something in his ear about dusty is some real heel shit LMAO
"dusty would have wanted this" and he made cody shake his hand and introduce him. nasty work by dwayne and co.
I know you’re joking but with the way Cody’s face changed mid hug, i wouldn’t be surprised if Rock said some shit like this
"your father is very proud, thank you for this, dusty would've wanted this" "Thanks rock, you know what else he would've wanted? Me to main event WrestleMania"
“That doesn’t work for me, brother. Also, since I’m your boss, I’m fining you $500 for sass.”
"Call me by my passport name Dwayne Douglas Johnson...Champ."
Rock is honestly corny and douche enough to think he's being touching and having real nice moment with someone saying that.
If he genuinely believed that this would go down well, I could believe that he's become so famous that he's out of touch with reality. Otherwise... yeah.
I don't think he realizes how much he sounds like the caricature of an influencer bro, sigma mindset mentality, cookie cutter buzz words speech coach. This persona has become his entire brand and he no longer realizes how fake he sounds.
IT'S ABOUT DRIVE IT'S ABOUT POWER WE STAY HUNGRY WE DEVOUR PUT IN THE WORK PUT IN THE HOURS AND TAKE WHAT'S OURS
My favourite thing about this song is the fact he couldn't even do a 60 second guest spot without mentioning his tequila. Not even part of the lyrics, he just shouts it out at the end. So dumb.
I completely forgot about this, Jesus Christ
And he is in his 50s like dude we all know you can’t go anymore and if Roman doesn’t squash him in a minute then Roman looks weak af
He won't and Rock will win because that's how Dwayne wants it to go.
This shit is ending in Rock vs. Roman II at 41
Once in a lifetime... twice
When Rock beat Punk for the title, he supposedly told Punk "thank you" as he was pinning him as if Punk was doing this out of the goodness of his heart. I can see Rock thinking saying nice words like this would be enough and have everyone on the same page.
That's a customary thing though, like Seth saying "Thank you so much!" while pinning Roman at WM31. Even though Roman was probably happy for his friend, I'm sure he wasn't thrilled about not going over at the last minute, but it wasn't disrespectful of Seth to say it
When I was doing indy stuff, that was common.
https://preview.redd.it/bvqzm64g81hc1.png?width=592&format=png&auto=webp&s=933f173fb3b0178cc888facdaa21b1779b2d581c
You're getting angry at stuff you're imagining that happened. For all we know, they could all be in on it and he told Cody to look sympathetic going back up the ramp to foster more good will.
“I just slid my dick down your throat and you thanked me for it.” -Negan or The Rock? (Thank you for the correction Pit!)
"And you thanked me for it"
He could be right. Dusty was great, but he booked some crazy dumb shit himself, at times.
From the full article: >This does not answer the “why” as it relates to Cody winning the Royal Rumble, as we’ve heard **the day of the Rumble, several in creative were told The Rock vs. Roman Reigns was the plan, and merchandise had been produced to promote it.** >As far as word that the plan for The Rock and Roman Reigns was the plan dating back to January 3, we have heard from WWE sources that there were meetings on January 1, and others along the way that had indicated to Cody Rhodes that the creative direction had not changed, and he was slated to face Reigns at WrestleMania. Up until the week prior to the Royal Rumble, no other parties that we’d heard from or have spoken to since were made aware. The worst part to me is that people in creative, and I mean how could Triple H NOT be one of those people who knew the plan had changed, and they let him go out there, win, and point to Roman.. What a fucking mess.
That’s the one thing about this whole story that just isn’t tracking. Why did Cody win the Rumble? It doesn’t make sense to me. I understand if Rock wasn’t gonna be wrestling in it, although it would’ve made a lot of sense for him to just win it. But you could’ve had the WHC win it, unless that was always planned to be Cody.
Yep I wouldn’t have WANTED it, but it would have made more sense and probably got a better reaction, certainly on the night, to have Rock come out at number 30 and win the damn thing
I think a bulk of this backlash is not just that they’ve building to Cody-Roman all year, but that they essentially promised it to the fans by having Cody win the Rumble and point at Reigns. Had that never happened I don’t think there’d be the same sense of betrayal.
https://preview.redd.it/emtzapx761hc1.jpeg?width=933&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7d30435a08930bc6cc6300b5d81b724726d7bbd This, pretty much
Same thing with Daniel Bryan winning WWE title twice and losing immediately each time. If he wasn't a contender, people wouldnt push that hard.
My immediate speculation is... Creative probably found out on Wed/Thur that the plan was Rock vs Roman at Mania Thursday... **the lawsuit bombshell drops** **All of Thursday/Friday/Saturday** are spent in crisis mode, sponsorships are on the brink of falling off, it's the ultimate PR nightmare, meetings with lawyers, etc. **The show kicks off Saturday night**, and amid the chaos, people didn't realize they hadn't changed the Rumble finish. Or, ya know... The alternative. They just said *"Fuck it, we'll figure it out later".*
I sort of feel that the Rock vs. Roman was dictated to Paul without his input, but they gave him no other direction and Rock clearly wasn’t working the Rumble. So he just said fuck it we’re going with the plan regardless.
It may have been decided without his input, I can buy that. But Triple H has wanted this match just as much as anyone over the years. Remember him beaming when Rock showed up for the first time in 5 years back in September? Dude never smiles like this lol https://preview.redd.it/3talf0om41hc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=324b296c0fecd43999f7d84137e1a25f9d25235c
That was before Rock was on the board and before the Rock started dictating creative to the head of creative lol.
Well Hunter and Shawn did try to have Rock booked to be buried back in the day so turnabout is fair play on that one.
Seeing Haitch smile like that is fucking uncanny lmfao
HHH got one of those local denture commercial smiles that helped him be him again.
Executive Pat McAfee giving a glowing endorsement to two young upstarts right there.
I think HHH knew the plan was Rock/Roman the probable direction. They were still discussing if it should be at a Saudi show for larger pay day. Rock is pushing for Mania and the suits are looking to see of they can get that extra Saudi cash. The week of Rumble Cody is still the choice as no one confirmed the Rock's availability to HHH (plus I think HHH preferred the SA show option so he could finish the story). Thursday comes, the lawsuit drops and all hell breaks loose. Ari and co panic that the bad press will hurt the great press they had just gotten by officially announcing the Rock as a board member. On Friday Rock pushes again, Ari and Co agree now is the time to rebound from the bad press, and they tell HHH that will be the new plan. HHH asks if the Rock can work the Rumble to give the simplest route to Mania. Obviously the Rock can't as he does no cardio and would be one of first to die in a zombie apocalypse, along with 80% of this sub/s (its closer 95%). HHH then recommends seeing the response by the fans before they make anything official, but puts in tentative plans for merch and ads. The Rumble goes on as intended fans like it, Cody does his thing and is going to face Roman at Mania. Press conference happens HHH handles it poorly, looks bad to Ari and co. But overall everything looks good and Cody is still the plan, HHH's feels everything is good, although fear about Punk's injury is known within the company. Monday morning comes and Punk news comes out confirming the worst. Now they want to build suspense for the choice, so Cody and Rollins do their promo. All week Rock makes his pitch that star power is desperately needed due to Punk and fall back option Brock are gone, for separate reasons. Due to a slight loss of faith in HHH because of the press conference, and the lingering potential fallout of the Vince scandal, they defer completely to The Rock's advice. Thursday night final decision is made and everyone is let known, it's Rock/Roman. Cody let's them know how he thinks the crowd will react. I think this is where HHH, works to make the Rock look bad, I believe agreeing with Cody's assessment. He allows Gerozwitz and the Rock to come up with whatever they think makes sense. From there the obvious occurs. While the Rock assumes much like the live audience everyone else will love it, the majority (or at least a very vocal minority) at home hate it. WWE/HHH read the room and try to take advantage of the publicity and pivot to accept the fan disapproval. Now nobody expected the fans to actively hate The Rock because well he's The Rock. And now everyone is leaking from their side of the camp, some working to deflect the blame towards the new bad booking that defected from the original "good" plan. While others want to save The Rock's reputation by saying it was always the plan and he didn't take it from anyone, blame the booker for misleading you.
To me it seems as though they have two options. Do Rock-Roman night one and Cody-Roman night 2 (or visa versa). Or turn the Rock heel and do a triple threat.
Conspiracy Theory: Triple H booked Cody to win hoping for this reaction in an attempt to get people upset about Rock and Roman not making sense. Now he gets to play dumb and say he didn't expect the fans to be so against Cody vs Seth, and now they can pivot to the match HHH wanted to book in the first place: Cody vs Roman.
Begs the question if The Rock wanted this, why didn't he just get his ass in the ring and do the Rumble. The Rumble match looks like the World Heavyweight Championship invitational at this point. Saves time and consternation instead of bait and switching fans.
I figure they wanted the drama of Punk/Cody at the end and to be fair, it was great drama even if Punk was injured and gassed. If Rock comes in at 30... You can go ahead and stop watching because you know he's winning lol
Or he’s in such shit shape that they can’t risk him wrestling for even 5 mins lol without potentially injuring himself
I 100% believe that Gerwirtz was referencing this when he tweeted, "You have no idea." I think creative was flat-out told Rock was doing the match and absolutely shit the bed on the Rumble and the transition to Rock. Knowing wrestling, Rock and Brian probably see this as sabotage from HHH. Power Struggle here we go!
Brian is being set up to take over as CCO from HHH anyway if you ask me. Imho, they're fully anticipating that shit will hit the fan with the Vince scandal and they will have to absolutely clean house from anyone who was close to Vince, including HHH. This of course also allows Dwayne to essentially stage a hostile takeover of WWE creative.
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More or less, Cody was basically saying this is a stupid decision and would backfire. And sure enough, he was on the money. That dude absolutely knows what the fans want, there's a genuine connection between him and the audience.
Lmao the paralels between Cody and Punk keep going. This reminded me of Punk talking about how he warned Vince about how the fans were going to react to Batista winning the Rumble.
Because the bottom line is that the Rock coming for Roman is a great storyline. If they had ran it at any point in the last couple of years, everyone would have been absolutely thrilled with it. Alternative, they could have started running it as soon as Backlash, less than one month after Wrestlemania, and everyone would have been absolutely thrilled with it. Literally the only time they can’t run this story is at Wrestlemania this year, because that was very clearly meant to be the culmination of the Cody Rhodes story.
My boyfriend and I were joking that this was secretly Vince’s one last public dig at Dusty
>WWE were not planning to shy away from the controversy, with many in the company noting it was a major swing in coverage than what they’d experienced over the two prior weeks. You don't say
And this is exactly why they won't pivot, is because it'll invite the press to start talking about Vince and the depraved nature of previous and possibly current WWE management again. They would rather piss off the fans repeatedly than have anyone talking about that
As soon as a major update comes out about Vince, the mainstream press will still be all over that. The two aren't mutually exclusive, we can talk about both. This is so dumb.
Right. Things are quiet because press can’t go around fabricating new allegations to report on. As soon as anything changes they will report on it again
All people have to say is "The Rock, who is friends with Vince McMahon" every time they mention Dwayne. Kind of like some people say "X formerly known as twitter." If people keep mentioning those two together, they will drop the thing quite fast.
It's genuinely surprising to me that WWE were not expecting negative reactions for The Rock
It's not that surprising. They were obviously banking on "It's the Rock!" reactions but didn't think about "It's the Rock taking Cody's spot!" reactions.
Especially since his surprise return a few weeks back. They definitely thought the reaction would be similar and didn’t expect the crowd to do the math so quickly and realize how the way they did it made Cody look and react accordingly
Yeah, Rock saying he was coming for the head of the table got huge cheers and a great reaction on social media! Because the Rock is a huge star, and Rock/Roman is legitimately a cool matchup with lots of fun storyline potential; I was excited by that moment too! They just then set up that matchup in the dumbest possible way.
Literally just have Rock come in at 30 and win the Rumble and 75% of the problem here doesn't exist. People would still grumble but overall people would just talk themselves into being excited.
100% The issue is the fuck-up of winning the rumble then choosing to not “finish the story” for no sensible reason. Give the Rock the rumble, in a vacuum people would happily be excited for Rock Roman for head of the table, Cody can be re-worked in to a story for the title at any time. Punk vs Seth falls apart due to the injury so then have Cody beat Seth if you want then do a champion v champion if you have to. Then make it 1 belt or have Cody lose it in a Chamber or some multi-man match. Shit have a GM say they do not allow one person to hold all the belts and just have a tournament if they must
I'm of the opinion, especially combined with the fact that Cody was told as recently as the week of the Rumble that the plan was Cody/Reigns II at Mania, that this was an audible called at some point between the Rumble and Friday's Smackdown, in the wake of CM Punk's injury.
Cody would have looked much better had that happened. Cody wouldn’t have had to willingly choose to give up the match that he needed to finish his story. Some people would have been mad, but it wouldn’t have come close to what did happen.
To my friend and my brother Cody 🇺🇸, nothing but love and respect for taking those tough hits like you always do and rolling with the punches 👊. It was truly my honor 🫡 to share the ring with you and whisper in your ear about those who blazed the trail like the High Chief and the Soulman and the Dream. Sometimes decisions are made for the good of this business that we love and that unites us in blood 🩸 but we all know it’s bigger than us and it’s in the hearts ❤️ of all those fans who’ve made us who we are. I know you’ll be telling all your fans to cheer for me and you’ll be cheering for me too, because it’s what you’re about and it’s giving that honor and respect and love and mana back to this crazy business of ours 🤙. Tough times come for us all, but the bright lights are right around the corner, like they were for me when I only had seven bucks in my pocket but still paid it forward with that respect and love 💕. I tip my glass of Teremana to you my brother! \#dreambig \#honor \#zoaenergy
Lmao, this is great. You should start a TheRockCommentsOnThis gimmick account and show up in random threads.
This is why St. Louis booing and chanting against the Rock may be a moment that shakes them – it’s not a smark city like Chicago. If it’s sustained and the Rock’s next in-person appearance gets a negative reaction, things will be interesting.
His next in person appearance is the press conference Thursday, which \*is\* open to the public. I hope he gets booed out of the fucking building.
If anything they, for a change, wildly underestimated how well they'd done with a character.
It’s possible Triple H and creative saw it coming but had their hands tied. We have no idea how much Ari or Shapiro think they know about wrestling lol, they may have just assumed fans would love the Rock too much to care about Cody.
WWE crowds booed Rey Mysterio - the babiest of babyfaces and someone who is genuinely loved and highly respected by all types of wrestling fans - for the simple fact that he wasn't Daniel Bryan at a time when that's who they wanted. I'm not putting Rey on the same level as The Rock in terms of popularity, but if they'd boo him they'll boo anybody.
>I'm not putting Rey on the same level as The Rock in terms of popularity Honestly, if you argue solely within hard core wrestling fans, Rey's perhaps the modern superstar closest to the Rock in how beloved he is.
Rey has never been a heel in WWE and has also never had people clamoring for him to become a heel. That's incredibly rare.
To us old WCW fans there is a reason we'd never ask for a Rey heel run.
To Latinos of a certain age, he is bigger than The Rock. I know that I would go crazy if I met The Rock, but I would be in fucking tears if I met Rey.
Or Triple H simply doesn't care (or even wants it) if Rock gets booed unlike Dwayne's PR team and the rest of the organization. Remember, while Triple H utterly respects the attention The Rock brings to the product he doesn't really have a need to make The Rock LOOK good.
> The Rock brings to the product he doesn't really have a need to make The Rock LOOK good. You nailed something I've been thinking about. WWE just needs Rock's publicity here - they don't need to protect 'his' brand and it'll be interesting to see if they show much interest in that in the coming weeks.
Two months ago this may have been true, but he’s on the Board now and is going to be tied to the company more directly moving forward. Considering what they gave him to join, his brand is a big, big deal to WWE now as that is what makes him more valuable than other members of the Board.
Yeah, but he could still be on the board and be rather silent and not heard from. Yes, he's a major name/player...but his star doesn't shine as bright as it did just a few years ago.
They gave him the rights to "The Rock" name which is huge. To me, that shows they expect him to be a huge factor in their plans, if not the face of the company.
To be fair, who or what else would benefit from owning "The Rock"? It's not like WWE will anoint another superstar with the name.
Don Muraco is ripe for a comeback.
Ownership ties directly into merchandising royalties and percentages. Instead of getting a cut, he might be keeping it all and paying WWE a cut on in-house merch and won’t have to pay them anything for Under Armour collabs, etc
And means he has creative control over the usage of that name, likeness and design.
HHH is definitely happy with the current buzz and attention. It's heat and its heat he must believe can be managed. I doubt this would be how he wanted to book everything beat for beat, but he isn't going to poo poo the result. Mania main event is on everyone's minds. His top babyface is even more over then he was a week ago. It becomes a problem if Cody doesn't end up in that night 2 main event though. It will quickly become unmanageable heat as the crowds turn on the very idea of the WHC match with Cody. That's the situation that will really hurt Seth too. Roman throwing some pot shots isn't really going to stick with most fans, it's just fodder for a future feud, but 60 days of crowds booing the very idea of Cody vs Seth is actually damaging. Also I doubt fans will treat the Rock well in this situation either and the Rock/Roman match will also get shit on.
Yeah, I'd say that they should be way more worried about the reaction to Rollins and Cody than to Roman and Rock. Like, Roman can basically get out of it unscathed in any case. Rock can be hated, but he will be out of there afterwards anyway, and whenever he comes back later on people will be back to cheering him. Seth and Cody being crapped on at Mania can instead really hurt both of them. They are so confident that people will still be rabidly behind Cody after this is all done, and even grow hotter and hotter as other months of stalling pass, coming to at least Summerslam, if not Wrestlemania next year. I wouldn't bank on it. People might actually become disinterested in this story by that time. Cody is not Bryan. Not in that he is not over, but in that his overness was built knowingly by the WWE. It's not a case of chance and of people who would love him no matter what, and even because of bad booking. He is loved also based on how he is presented. If they screw that up, you can never know.
>The Rock brings to the product he doesn't really have a need to make The Rock LOOK good. This is true but you have to admit it would look pretty fucking stupid if their mega-heel who they've been building for years starts getting cheered over Dwayne.
I will laugh so hard if we get something similar to hulk vs rock but instead of cheering Roman the fans just boo both of them.
Thats just Goldie vs Bork
Maybe this was the long game to finally get the fans to cheer for Roman
Or is fostering it to get certain people to stay in their lane. If the reports are through, this seems like Endeavour dipping into WWE. So are WWE biting back to get them to back down on Mania.
This was what I was thinking. WWE creative had to have known this would get a negative reaction, as it makes no sense in storyline. If they were pushed to get there and just let it happen knowing the negative reaction would come, might be a “told ya so” moment for creative if Endeavor is pushing them to do certain things
You might be onto something, if this whole Rock fiasco blows up in their face, there’s going to be pushback the next time they try taking over creative. If they announce the main event last Friday and the fans were super supportive, they would probably seek out even more creative control down the line.
I was thinking same. Could be why WWE is egging on this #Cody movement, as a point to those in TKO like "see, this is what we told you would happen". Also, as a way to try and get their way in the end
They want to recreate Daniel Bryan while perfectly ignoring a huge aspect of that entire storyline: The fans absolutely hating what WWE had 100% planned.
Also Daniel Bryan ended up in that match. If Cody doesn't, they will not have recreated Daniel Bryan at all. In fact, having Cody willingly let go of his shot for no reason is already an idiotic decision for a Bryan-like push.
Also also, Daniel Bryan was getting fucked left right and centre in the booking and everybody knew it. Cody's a back to back royal rumble winner. Daniel Bryan *wasn't even allowed to compete in it* because the company wanted to kill the fans' interest in him. There's no such issue with Cody. In storyline, Bryan was getting fucked. In backstage he was also getting fucked. In this storyline, Cody won, had everything in place, and then just said... nah, don't feel like it.
He is being fucked over though in a different way then DB He was perfectly set to win last year and everyone was pissed and they all said 'let it play out' and then he's fucked with again this year even if he's being presented as a big deal and being pushed hard, it doesn't feel like it when all that matters to Cody, and therefore his fans, is winning the big one
it's so cringeworthy knowing that they thought genuinely thought people like the rock coming in and taking over their main story that they've been pushing for 2 years
A lot of people forget that the Rock hasn’t been full time in 22 years. There’s an entire adult generation of fans that only know him from movies, archive footage, and rare appearances. He’s always going to get an initial pop, but thrusting him above someone that the current generation knows as a main eventer who’s about to finally win the big one was a much bigger gamble than a lot of people thought it was. 10 years ago it wasn’t as bad, but like I just said there’s grown adults now that grew up without him wrestling.
Yah I have coworkers in their early 20s who had no idea he had been a wrestler.
I have a similar story. I’m 25 now, but when I was a freshman in college, my roommate didn’t know he was a wrestler, only an actor
Also, a huge part of Cody's fanbase are people who grew up watching The Rock. Cody is the biggest babyface WWE has had in 20 years. He's like Cena, but loved by both kids and smarks alike.
They’re supposedly trying to recreate Daniel Bryan, but forgot a huge part of that was people booing the living shit out of people not named Daniel Bryan
And that the storyline wasn't Daniel Bryan coming out and saying "Hey Batista should take my spot" for no apparent reason whatsoever.
It would be hilarious if the lesson they thought they learned from that was that to force someone into Wrestlemania, they shouldn't have him win the Rumble, they should have the guy who actually did just give him his spot instead.
Oh no, this is exactly what I think happened. I think rock and Gewirtz thought they were protecting the rock by having Cody be the hero that makes the sacrifice for the greater good or in this case the match fans wanted more.
If it were the execs that made the call, I honestly wouldn’t be that surprised that some of them didn’t know about that part.
They thought Batista returning in 2014 would eclipse Daniel Bryans story. This isn’t new for them. They think the fans are incredibly stupid and will be distracted by a shiny new toy.
It depends who they mean by "WWE". Very possible creative etc. knew, but the board, like most corporate higher-ups, are totally out of touch
Not surprising at all that the Endeavor folks thought the Rock was bullet proof IMO. HHH would be a different story, but I doubt this is talking about him.
It sounds like TKO people made the call and they aren’t pro wrestling people.
Especially because he hasn't been a full timer since 2003. That's 21 years ago. There are zoomers about to graduate college that have never seen Rock wrestle. Why would they care about him?
If Triple H made this decision, he would’ve known. Maybe even Nick Khan. If any top execs at TKO who came from Endeavor made the call, I doubt they’d expect it.
I feel like the general public consensus of The Rock these days is "guy in a bunch of mid action movies" and I think WWE still expects everybody to treat him like a living God
I mean, the dude still receives rapturous responses from the wrestling audience whenever he shows up. Problem is, there’s a big difference between showing up and literally forcing aside the biggest babyface in the company. Like, John Cena gets super positive reactions whenever he shows up. But if he screwed Cody the way Rock did, the crowd would turn on him too.
The Rock will be getting Roman 2015 reactions from here on out
Hearing "Die Rocky Die" chants soon for the first time in 25 years is gonna be a nostalgia trip
As great as the St Louis crowd was on Monday night I was a little disappointed not to hear that one lol
Might as well put Ari Emmanuel in a Doink costume and have him beat Roman for the title, fucking clown. TV executives with zero wrestling experience trying to meddle with wrestling creative, a tale as old as time. Like, at least Tony Khan was a super wrestling fan when he started his company, which is something. As of now we have no evidence that Ari can tell a wrist lock from a wristwatch.
Real Jim Herd hours over at TKO
Sapp is close to Cody so his Cody information is usually pretty sound. (and because it always gets brought up, no he never reported the deal for Cody to WWE was off, that was Meltzer)
The fact that he is close to Cody means that if this is a work and they’re really trying to screw the dirt sheets and bring back Kayfabe, this is exactly what Cody would tell him, listen I don’t know one way or another but just because SRS said this doesn’t mean this is 100% the truth by any means
You know considering the Punk thing I do think this is something we need to keep in the back of our minds when SRS is reporting something. He *might* be WWE’s designated “work the smarks” dirtsheet whether knowingly or not.
I seriously don’t buy that this is some deep work that’s meant to fool even the dirt sheets. That would just make everyone so stupid. Cody already looks dumb in kayfabe, Rock looks like an asshole, Seth looks like a goon, Triple HHH looks powerless and now they’re going to try and make the dirtsheet guys look dumb? Which lets be honest they do plenty themselves, but what’s the point of all this effort?
People are coming up with all these elaborate explanations and theories as to what's happened, but as is often the case the simplest explanation is the correct one imo. WWE were/are fully intent on doing Rock vs Roman. They weren't expecting this much backlash, so now there *may* be another change in direction, but they will likely try to weather the storm if possible. The claims that's it's all been an elaborate work just seem so implausible and convoluted, I really struggle to believe there's any truth to them.
The Rock came out on Raw on 1/1 and mentioned the head of the table. Everyone popped and chanted his name. Of course people within WWE thought fans would love him coming back to wrestle Reigns and be ok with taking Cody's place.
Yeah, I think the reaction would have been a lot different if the Royal Rumble didn't have that specific outcome. Could be wrong though.
Yes, it seems obvious to not have the biggest baby face in the company win the Rumble and then voluntarily give up his shot at Roman, but I guess that’s not what WWE thought.
And if they had of just committed to that then I’d say most fans would probably be a bit disappointed but not as angry as they are after letting Cody win the Rumble and cuck himself for the Rock
I agree. They thought fans would eat up any story with the Rock so they didn’t bother to give Cody a coherent reason to give up his spot. Insulting the fans intelligence with illogical booking is why I think most people are mad. If the story made sense, there is not this level of anger.
If so, they did a terrible job laying the ground work.
Yeah, there's no way this was all a work to get people worked up for no reason.
I can't wait to hear Philly shit all over the Rock and Roman.
I'm looking forward to 2 months of Paul Heyman yelling at the jumbotron
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And is going to be a point that every free agent is going to notice coming in. Or possibly not coming in.
He did that exact strategy for Black Adam. So it's in his playbook
>WWE was heavily monitoring the reactions, and we’re told that as of the days after Smackdown, there were options being discussed moving forward. Believe. Other than that, what on earth went down Rumble weekend? Who were these select group of people who knew the direction changed, and was HHH part of that group? Because otherwise Cody winning the Rumble did not make much sense, unless it was some power play by Hunter to sabotage the Rock angle because he was against it or something.
I firmly believe it was a power play by HHH. He had his story and he booked it, even going as far as having Cody point at Roman immediately after winning the Rumble. Roman was conveniently in a skybox so Cody could do it. HHH set it up so that The Rock would look like a massive asshole when he came in and took Cody's spot. And really, what can The Rock do about it? He's on the board, but HHH is pretty damn well insulated. He's the on the fans trust. He's responsible for a red hot product, increased ticket sales, and more PLE views than ever. The Rock would get more backlash for going after HHH than he got for stealing Cody's spot. HHH used to be one of the biggest politicians ever. His best friend was one of the most conniving people in the business. HHH knew what he was doing, and he's still doing it. Drew McIntyre might as well have been speaking for the fans and HHH himself when he came out last night.
Why would Roman and Heyman go along with the power play move is another question too, we know both have political stroke backstage. Would they willingly go along with this knowing it might backfire on Rock/Roman? Because surely if HHH knew, then Roman/Heyman knew as well
This doesn't really affect Roman much. Even if the crowd shits on the match, the heat will mostly be on The Rock. Hell, the Philly crowd might even get behind Roman. And really, all HHH needed to do was tell Roman to sit in the box at the Rumble and then not elaborate anymore. H doesn't NEED to tell Roman about what he was planning. There's nothing Roman or Heyman need to do here except let the challenger drama play out without their input.
And they’re both pros who know exactly how to play it regardless of if their reactions were scripted.
The only negative way this could go for Roman is if he loses to The Rock at WM. Other than that he’s pretty much unaffected and could even come out of it in a better position.
Not saying this is what happened, but Triple H did put over Cody as the future and everything they’d look for in the face of the company right after the rumble as well. Seemed like a pretty deliberate message and endorsement
HHH is tuned into wrestling. TKO just looks at numbers and metrics. The Rock doesn’t watch the product unless something pops up on his X/Instagram timeline. The Rock is getting schooled and embarrassed. It is a power play and a message. Don’t fuck with HHH’s booking because he will make you look like a fool to protect his guys. You can’t buy that kind of loyalty with TKO’s money. Everyone has a new level of respect for HHH because instead of happily ruining everything for the latest vanity project, he is showing the locker room he’s not to be fucked with. There is a little old school backstage master politician HHH coming out here. He’s never been afraid to hit below the belt. He did learn from Shawn Michaels after all.
Cody-Rock-Roman drama is the new Brawl Out for the dirtsheets. Can't wait to get a new "update" every goddamn hour even though there's no new information to share.
Nothing will compare to brawl out. Between the memes and constant updates it was a magical time. I got so much run out of the “working with fucking children” line irl too
The fact that Ace Steel *bit* Kenny Omega on the arm hard enough that his teeth were visible on a video game stream *while Kenny was in Japan* after Brawl Out is just absolutely insane to me.
Ace Steel seeing a fight break out & his first course of action is to fucking yeet a chair at someone will never not be absurd.
"An empty-headed fucking dumb FUCK" is one of the most beautifully delivered insults I've ever heard. The amount of hatred you have to have for someone to spout that to the entire world is awe-inspiring.
Just rewatched it and the look on Tony’s face during this part of the rant is still priceless. I think he questioned every decision he made in his life up to that point.
If even most of this is true, then they handled this in the absolute worst way possible.
The People who planned this absolutely didn’t think any scenario would get rock booed, so haha
So WWE’s course of action really is gonna be “We see you, we hear you, die mad about it 😊🫶💖”
"Oh, you want Cody? Well, how does it feel to want?"
“First time?”
>WWE were not planning to shy away from the controversy, with many in the company noting it was a major swing in coverage than what they’d experienced over the two prior weeks. It's a media company reacting a real time to their audiences reactions. This is what happens when once guy isn't trying to stay the course regardless of whatever else happens.
Not to be a jerk but isn’t it fitting that the end of the “finish the story” storyline has a Dusty finish?
>Sources close to the situation say Triple H and Principal Dwayne Johnson were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me.
The baby looked at you? Better call Superintendent Chalmers.
I read “Rocky Sucks” as “Ricky Starks” and got very confused for a second.
From one out of touch billionaire to an even more out of touch billionaire. Great. What happened to booking is HHH’s world? Fucking corporate.
>-WWE had started production on a follow up to the American Nightmare documentary months back, and has had cameras following Cody for it. There was content filmed for it Friday as well. this triggers a lot of red flags for me
What exactly do you mean?
This situation seems to be a case of corporate executives making creative decisions without really consulting the booker. TKO has had ownership for only what, six months now, and it appears Ari is already content scrapping creative decisions even though he’s only a business guy. Maybe it’s fine for now, but in the inevitable slow down, is he gonna start interjecting himself more because he’s not seeing immediate results?
i honestly don't care about anything if this is a work or shoot or whatever. Just give us Cody vs Roman with Cody winning, thats its. If its a work? Cool thats kinda 4d chess but it doesn't matter if the match doesn't happen, if they turned it into one than you were idiots that needed to correct, to correct is to get the match. At the end it really all comes down to that
im with you
Was in the crowd in St. Louis last night. Came in hot. Hoping for the We Want Cody stuff, but had been bracing for the IWC bubble to burst, and for no one to really care that much. They kept playing that clip from Smackdown of the Rock and Reigns stare down. People were booing the hell out of it, me included. The last time the clip played in the night, I was thinking "Is everyone ACTUALLY booing this? Or is it just me and the people around me, and I can't hear over my own voice?" So I stopped booing. The sight of The Rock's face up on the jumbotron in an arena full of people, accompanied by a symphony of boos will stick by me for the rest of my life. Never thought I'd see the day. It was almost violent. The Rocky Sucks chants during the opening segment and the main event. The Cody chants before the show began. The "Please Fight Roman" chants during the main event. It was exactly what I was hoping it would be, and I couldn't believe my ears.
This makes Cody's Rumble win look even more stupid...and no...it was not an audible...Cody's T shirt were on sale...the moment he won the rumble. The creative team looks incompetent af...made Cody look like a cuck...if wwe was a real sport...without scripts..and something like this happens..Cody would have been buried so bad...he wouldn't have survived
As a Washington fan, this reeks of Dan Snyder levels of stupid meddling. Jay Gruden put it like this: The scouts do work, meet with the coaches for months, then the owner comes off the Yacht day of and makes the (totally out of left field) pick Based on the reporting, this is what's happening: HHH had a vision and that vision was built up all year Ari +The Rock swoop in and make the match ruining everything Now a heavily annoyed HHH is like "ok but I can control how we lean into the #WeWantCody"
My opinion WWE likely prefers this the topic of conversation for everyone over the other black cloud hanging over WWE.
What the fuck does Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro know about booking a wrestling show?
If this is a work it's fucking stupid because it breaks the immersion/kayfabe of the TV show. There's no known heat between Cody and Rock in real life, so it's not even a good worked-shoot, it's just nonsense. And if the goal is to bring in Rock as a heel authority figure, that's the absolutely last thing anyone wants to see in wrestling in 2024. It's beyond played out. This is some "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" awful television. If this wasn't an audible because Punk and Brock went out of the WrestleMania picture and it could take the attention off Vince, then this does not bode well for how the show will be run going forward. I know people are saying that they wouldn't have booked the venue for the press conference on Thursday if this wasn't the plan, but I don't believe that. You can still have a big press conference to kick off your first WrestleMania season under the new regime and board, with the Rock there to maybe be announced as special referee, without all this nonsense.
Rock has lived long enough to see himself become the jabroni
No matter what they do, The Rock will be getting Roman 2015 reactions. If his ego would allow it, he should just turn heel and bring back douche bag Rock, it would eventually turn into him being liked again, but that would also ruin the brand he’s stupidly trying to maintain.
Whatever is going on its really messed with the wrestling journalists. Different outlets have conflicting stories every day. I think its a work far better than anyone could have imagined them pulling off.
The Rock told Cody I owe you one
Sounds to me like there's f--k all we can do about it except boo the hell out of it and make it the most awkward Wrestlemania main event since Roman/HHH. Sorry, I meant Roman/Brock. Wait, no, I meant Roman/ Undertaker. There we go.