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WrestleMania 41 has passed, and there were certainly plenty of highs and lows coming out of WWE‘s biggest event of the year. While this edition of the Show of Shows had some confusing moments, perhaps the biggest one involved ‘The Most Electrifying Man in All of Sports and Entertainment.’ The Rock, who had aligned himself with John Cena at Elimination Chamber, was noticeably absent. That left many fans confused, as he was the one who orchestrated Big Match John’s turn from a babyface to a heel. It was expected that The Rock would have a hand in the finish of Cena’s bout with Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship. Instead, it would be rapper Travis Scott who provided the interference as Cena went on to capture his record-tying 17th world championship.
This annoyed a large percentage of the WWE Universe, especially after Rock appeared on the Pat McAfee show on Tuesday to explain his absence with some controversial statements that only made fans angrier. Apparently, The Rock can float in and out of the company’s weekly programming at will. As a board member of parent company TKO Sports, a WWE legend, and a star of blockbuster movies, he’s earned that right, but fans think it is hurting the continuity of the promotion’s storylines. However, would the main event of WrestleMania 41 truly have been better if The Rock showed up? Probably not.
Why Wasn’t The Rock at WrestleMania 41?
He Clarified His Status When Speaking With Pat McAfee
In an attempt to put some of the questions regarding his WrestleMania absence to bed, The Rock made an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show following the event to put everything into perspective. He stated that, after a lot of creative brainstorming, the decision was made for him to sit this one out.
“[After Cena’s heel turn] I said… okay, we got six weeks, let’s go and build this storyline,” The Rock stated. “But I think it’s best for The Final Boss not to be involved in that finish. They had those six weeks to plan for that. So, I loved the finish of the match. I would have finessed things a little more than how they got there, but that’s just me, creatively. I laid this out, and I said this is how I think we really should go… why get involved in that finish when the spotlight should have been on John and Cody?“
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What Happened to The Rock? WWE Is Missing a Big Piece in the John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes Story
After weeks of buildup for his match against Rhodes, Cena’s decision to join forces with his old rival, the Rock, remains a mystery.
Understandably, fans were upset that Rock kickstarted this story at Elimination Chamber because he was asked to appear to boost ticket sales, only to remove himself from it. He also seemed to throw Triple H and WWE creative under the bus when he mentioned he would have “finessed” things differently. Some people were very vocal about their discontent, and no one more than Busted Open’s own Dave LaGreca, who went on an epic rant against Dwayne Johnson.
Amid all the discontent, however, there are those fans and critics out there who say the match and its outcome were better without the presence of one Dwayne Johnson. It’s left a lot of analysts wondering if the result turned out to be better than many originally realized.
Was WrestleMania 41 Better Without The Rock?
The Movie Megastar’s Presence Would Have Spoiled the Main Event Match
One thing Johnson said in his interview made perfect sense: The Final Boss would have taken the spotlight away from Cena during his final ‘Mania match. That’s a valid argument, as the focus of the entire story should have always been the new heel persona of Cena and the tactics he was willing to use to secure the win.
At the same time, no matter how much The Rock is hated online, people in an arena will always pop when he shows up. The Final Boss would have probably been cheered by a crowd that was already on Cena’s side, putting Cody’s role as the top babyface in jeopardy. Indeed, the crowd seemed to side with the Doctor of Thuganomics and boo Rhodes pretty audibly. In many ways, it was a reminder of Rock’s own WrestleMania match with Hulk Hogan in 2002, when the audience began cheering for The Hulkster out of pure nostalgia. Combining both of those legends would have probably swung the pendulum further in the heels’ direction.
In the end, the result was going to be the same, with Cena finishing off perhaps the most successful career in the promotion’s history this year, and grabbing a final world championship on his way out the door. And while it can be argued that the presence of Travis Scott was annoying and unnecessary, interference is always an interference, no matter who causes it. If people online hated Scott’s influencing the finish, what would they have said about The Rock doing the same? Probably that he wanted to hog the spotlight once again.
The best thing to do, really, was for The Rock to get involved in the story during the Road to WrestleMania, just to remind everyone that he caused all this and that, at some point down the line, he would have a reckoning either with Cena or Rhodes. Once this didn’t happen, however, the main event of WrestleMania was fine without him, and it turned out to be a good match. With or without The Rock, the main event did its job to facilitate this storyline, and it leaves plenty of possibilities for when he eventually re-emerges in WWE.
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