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Post by Wolf Hurricane on Jan 8, 2013 10:01:12 GMT -5
But is he really? I felt like the WWE was a bit afraid to have The Rock outside of Florida. You have GOT to be kidding me... The Rock will out pop anyone, on any given night nowadays, the old fans love him, and the new fans love him (not the internet ones, they seem fickle that rock isnt using real names and dropping 'pipebombs') Well, count me as one of those "fickle internet fans" who doesn't get the allure for "cookie puss" and Rocky's incessant fetish of shoving things up other men's asses. But to Sean's point, he's absolutely right. It doesn't matter what kind of crap Rock pulls out of his ass, he can get it trending on Twitter in no time.
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The Doctor
Dennis Stamp
New teeth. That's weird.
Posts: 4,952
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 8, 2013 10:15:11 GMT -5
This is exactly what happened between The Rock and Cena last year. But people are only willing to accept it now that it's Punk doing it. Last year Cena actually conveyed points that made sense and The Rock countered with nothing more than catchphrases but people tried to ignore it.
The fact is it doesn't matter. The aim of the game is to be entertaining no matter what content your delivering. The Rock does that.
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Post by Mike Wooster on Jan 8, 2013 10:39:57 GMT -5
There's as much a "Cult of Personality" around Punk as there is Rock. He name drops Colt Cabana and says things his fans want to hear ("Push Tyson Kidd!") and they lap it up.
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The Doctor
Dennis Stamp
New teeth. That's weird.
Posts: 4,952
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 8, 2013 10:46:54 GMT -5
There's as much a "Cult of Personality" around Punk as there is Rock. He name drops Colt Cabana and says things his fans want to hear ("Push Tyson Kidd!") and they lap it up. This is true. In fact it was the whole point of his initial promo last night. Which was a good idea even if said promo went on about 15 years too long and confused matters far too much.
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Post by EvenBaldobombHasAJob on Jan 8, 2013 11:00:51 GMT -5
It's fine if you don't like him but there is a reason why the Rock is one of the best in the history of this business. He knows how to grab people's attention. Pretty much this. Rock's entire promo while being series towards Punk was also aimed at entertaining the fans. He knew exactly how to do that and it worked well. Punk wasn't receiving as large of a response as people expected really and honestly even his hardest line (arms too short to box with god) was a Wu Tang line which people assume he created and even that didn't have the impact of Rock's crowd-wise. Overall Rock's promo did it's job, get the crowd and get Punk. Punk's promo did it's job too. Now, the beauty of this whole thing is the fact that the chemistry between Rock and Punk, the style clash, all of that is far better than Cena and Rock. They made magic tonight and the weeks leading up to the RR and even the RR match it'll be amazing. I expect this will be the greatest RR since 2001. Punk and Rock's chemistry was fantastic. 2 very different kinds of performer, and it makes things a lot more interesting than the Rock vs. a poor man's Rock (which is what Cena came off as and still hasn't fully shaken the stigma of). if WWE is smart (though they usually aren't) they'll ride this as much as possible and give us a 3 man main event at Mania instead of sweeping Punk under the rug in favor of a dull retread of last year.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2013 11:01:49 GMT -5
Isn't it every wrestler's job to be a cult of personality?
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Post by Red Impact on Jan 8, 2013 12:01:16 GMT -5
This is exactly what happened between The Rock and Cena last year. But people are only willing to accept it now that it's Punk doing it. Last year Cena actually conveyed points that made sense and The Rock countered with nothing more than catchphrases but people tried to ignore it. The fact is it doesn't matter. The aim of the game is to be entertaining no matter what content your delivering. The Rock does that. It's statements like this that just make me wonder if I had an entirely different series of Raws than other people. Cena spent 11 months saying absolutely nothing except "I'm here, you're not, how dare you retire?!" which is nothing but pandering to the worst segment of fans, the type who think they're owed for their fandom. He only ever said anything of real substance at the end of the build, and by then it was too little, too late. He had plenty of opportunities to bring up a salient point and completely, totally failed. That's why the build was so awful, Cena ignored the perfect chance to actually make for an interesting set of promos and clashing ideologies to just repeat himself over and over. The Rock actually responded to Cena early on, he elaborated why he had a beef with Cena, why he left, admonished Cena for questioning his love for the business, and everyone promptly ignored it because they couldn't get over Fruity Pebbles.
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The Doctor
Dennis Stamp
New teeth. That's weird.
Posts: 4,952
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 8, 2013 13:53:15 GMT -5
This is exactly what happened between The Rock and Cena last year. But people are only willing to accept it now that it's Punk doing it. Last year Cena actually conveyed points that made sense and The Rock countered with nothing more than catchphrases but people tried to ignore it. The fact is it doesn't matter. The aim of the game is to be entertaining no matter what content your delivering. The Rock does that. It's statements like this that just make me wonder if I had an entirely different series of Raws than other people. Cena spent 11 months saying absolutely nothing except "I'm here, you're not, how dare you retire?!" which is nothing but pandering to the worst segment of fans, the type who think they're owed for their fandom. He only ever said anything of real substance at the end of the build, and by then it was too little, too late. He had plenty of opportunities to bring up a salient point and completely, totally failed. That's why the build was so awful, Cena ignored the perfect chance to actually make for an interesting set of promos and clashing ideologies to just repeat himself over and over. The Rock actually responded to Cena early on, he elaborated why he had a beef with Cena, why he left, admonished Cena for questioning his love for the business, and everyone promptly ignored it because they couldn't get over Fruity Pebbles. I'll agree that Cena's stuff about The Rock not being there quickly outstayed it's welcome. Even if it was funny in a cheap way(just like Fruity Pebbles was). Just as some couldn't get over 'fruity pebbles' from The Rock there were those who only heard 'you're not here' from Cena. But there was more to what Cena said than that. Cena's defence of his style, his character and his fans perfectly placed him and The Rock as opposites. What Cena did was more effective than what Punk is doing because Cena actually got people to react to him. Cena got all the people who were supposed to cheer for him to cheer for him and all the people who were supposed to boo him to boo him. People who hate Cena think they are doing so for clever counter-cultural reasons when in fact they just hate him because that's what his character is for. Just because they go onto forums and dissect it in a 'clever' way they either ignore or are oblivious to the fact that Cena is working them. And Cena used all of that about his character perfectly to play off against The Rock. I would specifically put Cena's pre-WM 27 promo when he was face to face with The Rock as one of my favourite promos ever. (The first 5 minutes of this)
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Post by Tiger Millionaire on Jan 8, 2013 13:56:30 GMT -5
He's The Rock, he can say what he wants.
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Post by Red Impact on Jan 8, 2013 14:30:46 GMT -5
I'll agree that Cena's stuff about The Rock not being there quickly outstayed it's welcome. Even if it was funny in a cheap way(just like Fruity Pebbles was). Just as some couldn't get over 'fruity pebbles' from The Rock there were those who only heard 'you're not here' from Cena. But there was more to what Cena said than that. Cena's defence of his style, his character and his fans perfectly placed him and The Rock as opposites. What Cena did was more effective than what Punk is doing because Cena actually got people to react to him. Cena got all the people who were supposed to cheer for him to cheer for him and all the people who were supposed to boo him to boo him. People who hate Cena think they are doing so for clever counter-cultural reasons when in fact they just hate him because that's what his character is for. Just because they go onto forums and dissect it in a 'clever' way they either ignore or are oblivious to the fact that Cena is working them. And Cena used all of that about his character perfectly to play off against The Rock. I would specifically put Cena's pre-WM 27 promo when he was face to face with The Rock as one of my favourite promos ever. (The first 5 minutes of this) See, the thing is, the key point of what the Rock said his real problem was had nothing to do with the fanbase or the clothes, but because Cena insulted the Rock for leaving and said he didn't care about wrestling. Cena's promo there was really well delivered, and there's nothing wrong with it in terms of defending who he is, but it basically retcons the feud into the Rock being a bully and picking on Cena, ignoring the fact that Cena started it. And it apparently worked pretty well, because people seem to have forgotten that the Rock responded to everything Cena said. It made the build much weaker, because it turned what was a legitimate beef into schoolyard taunts. I like Cena normally, I think he's a lot better than he gets credit for, even when he's being goofy and dumb, but this feud made him look awful to me. I don't know if the change in the feud was Cena's fault or the writer's or the Rock's, but whoever decided it, it made the entire thing much weaker to me. That said, ignoring the backstory and what it was retconned into, that was a great promo.
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The Doctor
Dennis Stamp
New teeth. That's weird.
Posts: 4,952
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 8, 2013 14:50:53 GMT -5
Perhaps that promo just sold me so much on it that I kind of went with the rest of it. But I felt like Cena did a great job of using what it is some love about him and others hate about him. It felt like there was a genuine divide in that feud. In a simplistic way almost an Attitude Era vs Current Era type line drawn.
Even if some of it wasn't based in genuine truths it still resonated. Basing a feud in a 'Shoot' is only effective if everyone knows the relevance. I think Rock and Cena used just enough 'reality' to make it seem exciting. It may have been easy to dissect for those who dig a little deeper but of the 1.3m who bought WM28 I think only .1 of those are the type to dig deeper so it didn't matter all that much.
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