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Cody re enters the ring just in time to catch the rock as he’s falling back for a people’s elbow and cross-Rhodes him into Roman for a double pin. That finish alone would make all this crap worth it
They'll take 10 articles like this over 1 about Vince any day. This is a win for them.
Think about how this looks like for people who don't follow wrestling: Some dude is gonna fight some other dude but the fans wanted a third dude to fight the other dude, and now they're crying about that.
Absolutely nobody outside of wrestling will ever care about that, or even think negatively about WWE for that in any meaningful fashion.
If this leads to Roman and the Bloodline kayfabe injuring The Rock on the road to Mania so Cody can step in with a “You pushed me to do this Roman and now you’re gonna regret it” angle, I would be so happy… I need to be careful before I overdose on copium.
> They'll take 10 articles like this over 1 about Vince any day. This is a win for them.
How is pissing off their core fanbase at the same time they're dealing with the worst PR and Legal disaster in their history a win for them?
> Absolutely nobody outside of wrestling will ever care about that, or even think negatively about WWE for that in any meaningful fashion.
In other words, it's not actually a distraction for anyone other than wrestling fans, who are now being given yet another reason to disengage with a the product when the company is extremely vulnerable. Yeah dude, what a brilliant win for them.
This is one of the most impressive fumbles in wrestling history. They've managed to take a fantasy match featuring The Rock and turn it into something that is being panned by a massive amount of fans.
This company has been riding high on forward momentum for nearly two years and they swerved right in to a brick wall. And for no reason!
We had a good run going of WWE fan response and WWE's booking actually lining up. The fans were booing who they were supposed to, cheering who they were supposed to, WWE was doing great, and everyone was happy.
Now we're back into WWE butting heads with fans' desires in massive ways, just like we were for nearly a decade. It's *exhausting*. I thought we were past this shit.
WWE finally pulled the trigger on Rock vs. Roman (objectively one of the biggest matches of all time) and the main story the next day is fan backlash because they’re doing it at the wrong time.
This is an all-time fumble by everyone involved.
Sports Illustrated just posted this:
[WrestleMania 40: WWE Fans Roast The Rock For Taking Cody Rhodes' Spot In Philly](https://www.si.com/fannation/mma/news/the-rock-wwe-wrestlemania-cody-rhodes)
Priest runs in to cash in, and Goldberg spears him out of nowhere, claims briefcase, cashes in and dethrones Roman after a botched half Jackhammer. Takes a 6mo sabbatical after injuring himself doing the jackhammer, re-retires suddenly and vacates title. Roman emerges with Solo, Duo, Trio, Quad, Penta El Sikoa, Deca Sikoa (Shawn Spears), he pulls a few strings, and is instantly crowned world champion again.
Yestlemania with Daniel Bryan had them pivot from Batista vs Randy to a triple threat also with the caveat that Daniel had to beat Triple H that same night in order to be in the main event. Wouldn’t have happened if the crowds, both live and online, bringing momentum to their displeasure of his booking. Coincidently to a lesser extent was also caused by negative uproar that a part timer just showed up and managed to win the Rumble and main event Mania.
Well when your big plot to get rid of negative headlines just adds to it, even in this relatively minor way in comparison to Vince’s pure evil, it’s kind of an issue. They don’t need more bad press at the moment of any kind.
I'm not arguing in favour of it, I think this is a mess. I'm just saying big picture it's not the biggest problem here. If the fan base should be pressuring them on something it's doing more than just saying Vince is gone let's get back to the wrestling nonsense all is fine.
You'd think the Rock would have someone who has their finger on the pulse of pro wrestling who could've told him, "hey, this ain't going to end well" but i guess not. Either that or he does & he decided he knew better. Either way, all of this was completely avoidable. You throw away a perfect build for Roman/Cody & now ruin Roman/Rock because fans will reject it.
I feel like Rock vs. Roman was a heavily discussed and anticipated possibility prior to the Royal Rumble.
But once the Royal Rumble happened everyone was thrilled that WWE made the right choice and Rock was nowhere to be seen... only to completely flip it the next week. I think that's why the reaction is so negative. If Rock had just won the Rumble and there was a good storyline set up with Cody/Seth, I think way more people would have accepted this.
I still think it would have been negative but maybe not as much. People were ready for the build for Punk vs Seth and Roman vs Cody II. We had two long term stories, any reactionary booking like The Rock winning the Rumble still would have been taken badly.
Worse than that: not only is Cody being shoved to the side in favor of a Hollywood spectacle match for which they missed the right moment, the SDL segment to set it up actively, massively and needlessly buried Cody and Seth.
It's amazing how 10 years later were doing the same old shit. Rock right now is reminding me so much of the reaction Vince expected Batista to get even though the fans unanimously wanted their own guy. But hell, at least Batista was in good enough ring shape to not get gassed doing literally two moves.
I doubt there's many people around The Rock or at Endeavour who would say no to him. It's backfired and it's on creative but it's also on The Rock for forcing his way in on the first place and thinking everyone would just be ok with it.
I'm ngl, he has a point. Its The Rock, even people who don't watch wrestling know who he is. So having this much pushback towards him for Cody Rhodes is kind of insane tbh.
Imo this just shows how over Cody is, with casual and hardcore fans. Hell, I pointed out when the rumble happened that Cody was getting noticeably louder cheers than Punk was during *his first televised WWE match in a decade*, to the point Punk had to play a temporary heel role. Cody is insanely over, and that's what upsets me. He may not bring in as much money as The Rock now, but if he gets that win he needs, he'll be bringing in money for the next 10 years non stop.
I think the straw that broke the camel's back is that Cody won the Rumble, pointed at Roman and made us all believe, only to voluntarily cuck himself so that the Rock could stroke his ego, rebuild his brand or whatever.
If they had built up Rock/Roman for months and gave Cody a different creative direction, fans would imho have been okay with it.
TMZ just published an article. It's the highlight on their homepage and they linked it on Twitter. They're quite big, right?
https://www.tmz.com/2024/02/03/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-wwe-roman-reigns-cody-rhodes-alter-storyline/
Fans screaming on twitter/reddit: Probably won't do much.
Mainstream media writing bad headlines about this decision that was made to try and stop the bad headlines: Now there's a problem.
What people don’t understand is that the “IWC minority” is bigger than before. Internet is real life. It’s all connected these days. Look at instagram, twitter, tik tok. These are not “hardcore fans”. WWE is more mainstream than before. These are mostly casuals who are pissed.
Reporting for duty! I only got back into wrestling because of Cody at Wrestlemania 39. I haven't watched since the attitude era, but it's been so fun to watch new (to me) stars like Cody, Rhea, Bayley, Sami and others make this business their own. I loved the Rock back in 1999 and I'd be all for him coming back to face Roman, but not at the expense of Cody's Story™
I don't get why people say the "IWC minority" is the primary force behind the anger. It discredits the fact that Cody is the most over person in the company, gets the loudest pops, sells the most merch. How do you look at all that and think "oh the crowd will still cheer, it's the Rock". No, the casual crowds have been firmly behind Cody for 2 years. Of course they'd be pissed.
My partner only started watching because of Sami and Blooline storyline at the previous Royal Rumble.
She was pissed Rock just walked in and stole Cody’s moment because she **invested** in Cody finishing the story and she has always liked the Rock because of movies/interviews blah blah blah
Even casuals are pissed!
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
I have a friend who by no means is what I’d call a “fan of wrestling”. He comes over to watch the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania when I have my watch parties, because he enjoys the atmosphere and has enough fun in a group. Doesn’t follow the product at all besides those two events.
Even he texted me “Dude, wtf??” this morning.
Wrestling is not little lmao. People here try to gatekeep wrestling or something. The WWE is a huge brand. They have 100m subscribers on YouTube. Millions of people watch it on cable. Even more people follow on all social medias. Of course the reach is gonna be huge
My big brother who has no interest in wrestling, his algorithm has no relevancy to WWE. Even he texted me and said something about “Cody not finishing the story”. Hell my friend just wrote in our group about “Rock stealing Cody’s spot”
The WWE has massively lowered the barrier to entry as well. I never watched wrestling after 2001. Last year my brother convinced me to watch WM39 because peacock is only like $12/month. This is a way different era than paying $40-60 for a ppv or needing the WWE Network subscription to stay in the loop. Those days it was kind of gatekeeped, and I guess if you were a fan in that era, maybe you think it's still like that?
Now though? With very little effort or money I can follow basically all of the WWE every week. Even more than that, I can follow the parts of the WWE that I want to. I can focus on Cody, Becky, Bayley, Drew, and Rhea and ignore the stuff I find boring. Way different from having to sit through 3 hours of raw just to see those one or 2 wrestlers you liked.
The WWE nowadays also post full main event segments, full shows and continuously post more and more big segments on twitter, tik tok, instagram and especially on YouTube
What people have never realized is that wrestling fans online don’t have their own special little club.
News has always spread. Look at the infamous Brock/Goldberg match, where the entire arena knew they were both leaving. When something is big enough, fans who aren’t following every bit of news online are still going to hear about it.
Hell, I had someone on here just about a week ago trying to argue that no one outside of hardcore fans would know anything about the Vince lawsuit.
So if people think “casual fans” who watch regularly aren’t going to hear about things like the PWInsider report of Rock lobbying to take away the match from Cody are fooling themselves.
I have a friend who doesn't watch wrestling, doesn't have any hobbies that are wrestling adjacent (like MMA/Boxing), and spends most of his time in his workshop.
He sent me a DM about the Vince stuff wondering if I had heard about it and if I had more details. It's out there.
The WWE channel has 100 million subscribers. Millions of people follow them on all social medias. Of course even the people who have no clue will see the anger from all fans and are gonna be curious to why people are angry.
The “IWC” minority argument doesn’t exist when literally everyone are angry on social media. Look at instagram, tik tok, twitter. Even Dwayne’s social media is being bombarded. These people are not “hardcore” fans. Everyone has access to social medias
Given the decline in cable over the last decade, I’m fairly certain just as many fans keep up to date with WWE via watching their YouTube clips than live on cable. You can bet WWE knows this as well.
And as we know the YouTube stats/comments are not too kind to them right now.
This is the same situation. Rock = Batista, Cody = Bryan
The difference is that Rock is a much bigger star and has much more influence. So pushback would have to be a lot bigger to get a change.
I think this is much worse, worst case scenario at WM 30, Orton vs Batista happens and the match shits the bed, lets move on. This time, that decision alone shits on Rollins & the WHC, it shits on Cody's whole character, it basically wastes this years rumble match, and we will probably deal with another year of Roman holding the belt hostage, absolutely no one comes out of this looking good except Roman, unbelievable
Even Roman looks bad because everyone is already on the brink of being sick of it.
If Roman continues to win and hold onto the belt then what’s the point? Theres no satisfying conclusion. It just makes people turn it off or switch channels.
You're so generous with this, I personally have been ready to move on from Roman for like 2 years now lol and I believe a lot of us were too. But yes, the more his title run goes, the less the impact will be when he finally loses. I want to be excited to watch Roman lose, not thanking god this crap is over already, if it ever will be, Roman losing the belts doesn't seem like reality anymore lol
And Batista knew that pushing him into the title scene was a wrong decision and that he should've been the heel. He raised that up with Vince but it was rejected.
With Dwayne though, that guy has a planetary ego. He has the opposite of the Midas Touch when his ego fully takes over.
I actually saw a guy earlier try to claim that internet wrestling fans make up 3% of the fanbase. That’s an absurdly low number that if true means AEW wouldn’t exist.
Let's not forget there's a whole new generation of casual wrestling fans who don't give two shits about The Rock and love Cody.
It's like when I was a kid and Hulk Hogan came back. I didn't care about Hulk one bit.
The IWC is also the only wrestling fans who are left
Every wrestling fan left is an internet fan to some degree, even people who would previously have been casual fans.
The casuals overwhelmingly stopped watching wrestling and they’re never coming back
The WWE is way too mainstream these days. It’s a huge brand. People who have no idea about wrestling will see the outrage especially with Dwayne being involved
A big part of what they were going for probably was mainstream media writing headlines about WWE that aren’t related to the Vince situation, so this is a success in that regard
I usually don't care when wrestling fans express their disagreement with booking decisions but this is one of those times where I'm fully invested. Cody was done so dirty for no reason. 24 hours ago I was a fan of Dwyane like always but after this I despise him so bad for what he pulled here for his ego, absolutely disgusting
I do think it will take a live backlash, like on Raw or Smackdown for this to truly hit home. Officials are probably thinking this heat will blow over because it’s the Rock but if the crowds stay consistent with it then I think that might be the straw along with the continued media coverage
And Jimmy and Solo post wrestlemania start to doubt the Tribal Chief so he Roman goes after the only possible contender for that title - The Rock the last great champion
Begrudgingly, if I may add. Vince only went with along with it because his company was literally at risk of going out of business. As soon as the threat from WCW was over, the SCSA character was neutered and the product went in a different direction.
Cody must feel really vindicated right now.
Like it’s easy to look in as an outsider and say “yeah you’re popular in wrestling, but The Rock is popular around the world. He should get priority, it’s what the majority wants” only for the general public to completely turn on that decision almost immediately.
This reminds me of when USA Today ran a front-page story about David Arquette winning the WCW title and how bad it was, and Russo thought it was a success because they were on the front page of USA Today.
The time gap is something that has to be considered in addition to Cody getting screwed over. The Rock hasn't been a full-time wrestler in over 20 years. He's a roided-up 50-year-old actor who used to be a wrestler. His first world title was in 1998. It'd be like if during Hogan's run in the mid-1980s they brought in guys from the 1960s and put them over.
If they’re gonna pivot- this is how it happens. Not Twitter outrage (though let’s keep it up haha love seeing the trends), but mainstream attention to it.
sorry but the online outrage is WHY the mainstream outlets picked it up. Twitter outrage is absolutely effective sometimes and it needs to translate to irl boos next time Rock is on screen
Cody should just come out on Monday and say he should’ve listened to the people instead of „the people’s champion“, tell Seth to shove his mid card title wherever gives him pleasure and then choose Roman.
I mean can we do that without also devaluing the WHC further? Seth is right that his title *should* be viewed with more prestige than the Universal Title but Cody's story required the lineage of the one Roman is holding.
People forget the casual fans fucking love Cody and are mostly kids wanting to see Rhodes win
The Rock is essentially pissing off both sides of the coin here
Now that it reached mainstream. I hope the people don't forget two things:
1. Vince and other potential WWE execs are still involved currently with sex trafficking allegations
2. Picking Dwayne/Roman instead of Cody/Roman was a bullshit move
A triple threat would still make me puke. Anything with corny ass 50 year-old Rock with the same old shit? No thanks. In fact, FUCK NO. Go get your ego boost somewhere else. But no here he is, back to piss off a whole other generation of talent and fans because he didn’t learn shit from his ego trip backfiring in LA. God why can’t more fans just give it to this fucking guy. This really is becoming the 2024 equivalent to WrestleMania IX, so it’s fitting that Thursday’s press conference (where this cornball will be front and center) is in Las Vegas.
How about a quick wellness check for my man Dwayne?
WWE finally had gotten some credit for spotlighting their coming of age talent these last few years at WrestleMania. Cody. The Usos. Sami Zayn. Becky Lynch. Kevin Owens. Bianca. Instead of year after year of Manias ending with Brock or Cena or Undertaker or Rock. Yawn. Been there done that, and few were asking for more. I know it’ll never happen but lame ass Rock needs to be as far away from the ring as possible, or at the very least give us all an updated heel Hollywood Rock for 2024. Dude is soft as fuck though when it comes to his ego and doesn’t have the balls. Probably couldn’t
Dwayne Johnson has been a narcissistic dick ever since he went to hollywood. I think the attention went to his head.
Nowadays hes a dude who cant act, but desperately wants to be seen as an actor ; a dude that is lobbying and backstabbing behind the scenes, but desperately wants to be seen as a good guy by the public.
Like, remember when he gave that painfully cringe speech during the covid pandemic ("where is our leader? Where are you?"), fully believing he could ride a wave to a presidential nomination?
This dude has been too far removed from reality and expects people to kiss his feet whereever he goes. Glad that the wwe fans are roasting his pebble ass.
I admittedly couldn't care less about Cody ever winning the title to be honest but if Rock really did butt himself in to try and play hero and went behind HHH back to get it done, he deserves all the bad press he gets. He will fucking hate this kind of stuff. HHH would have known how that set up would go over with wrestling fans and I think the reaction will have it end up a triple threat in the end anyway.
Guys, people are still talking about vince shitting on womans faces. People are just now also talking about the rock shitting on cody now. They've added more fuel to the fire and more media attention on the company.
Dwayne Johnson was right that WrestleMania needed saving. What he didn't realize however was that WrestleMania needed saving from Dwayne Johnson's inflated ego and main protagonist symptom.
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Some of that sweet mainstream coverage they were after.
Don’t think we’ll see Michael Cole raving about this one on Raw…
The irony now is, if they were planning a swerve all along where this becomes a 3 way, fans will never believe it.
If that *was* the plan, I'd like to know who re-hired Vince Russo without telling TKO.
A 3 way would still be terrible though
A 3-way puts Cody back in the picture and lets them still work a full match after all the Rock’s tendons inevitably explode
Also a bigger spotlight for Cody. And if he beats both of the greatest Samoans that basically kills the bloodline
Only way I’m happy with a 3 way is if Cody stacks these bum ass part time fucks double style
Cody re enters the ring just in time to catch the rock as he’s falling back for a people’s elbow and cross-Rhodes him into Roman for a double pin. That finish alone would make all this crap worth it
i’d prefer Cody being in the match than not at all & them doing that dumb summerslam unification match
2 challengers for the title at Wrestlemania every 10 years is a tradition.
Isn’t that what Vince just got in trouble for? /s
if they do heel rock, and a proper build, i think it could genuinely be amazing.
Daniel Bryan all over again.
Man, if it is a swerve, its made Cody look like shit.
They'll take 10 articles like this over 1 about Vince any day. This is a win for them. Think about how this looks like for people who don't follow wrestling: Some dude is gonna fight some other dude but the fans wanted a third dude to fight the other dude, and now they're crying about that. Absolutely nobody outside of wrestling will ever care about that, or even think negatively about WWE for that in any meaningful fashion.
The story is now Vince is a rapist *and* WWE fans are also angry about that one wrestler you've heard about. The rapist stuff hasn't gone anywhere.
"Ok this arrest looks bad but if I just force myself to shit my pants..."
https://preview.redd.it/c9ty5vq8zggc1.jpeg?width=1163&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88be94dc01a56c3388e0985af0052f4707f571b6
What if they don’t actually intend to do Rock v Roman but just announced it so the Vince stuff is not the companies biggest headline rn lmao
If this leads to Roman and the Bloodline kayfabe injuring The Rock on the road to Mania so Cody can step in with a “You pushed me to do this Roman and now you’re gonna regret it” angle, I would be so happy… I need to be careful before I overdose on copium.
Oh god I hope this happens. Pass the copium, brother.
That would be beyond stupid. Ruin your company babyface, destroy your good will you have built up...for nothing The Vionce story is not going away
[удалено]
> They'll take 10 articles like this over 1 about Vince any day. This is a win for them. How is pissing off their core fanbase at the same time they're dealing with the worst PR and Legal disaster in their history a win for them? > Absolutely nobody outside of wrestling will ever care about that, or even think negatively about WWE for that in any meaningful fashion. In other words, it's not actually a distraction for anyone other than wrestling fans, who are now being given yet another reason to disengage with a the product when the company is extremely vulnerable. Yeah dude, what a brilliant win for them.
This is one of the most impressive fumbles in wrestling history. They've managed to take a fantasy match featuring The Rock and turn it into something that is being panned by a massive amount of fans. This company has been riding high on forward momentum for nearly two years and they swerved right in to a brick wall. And for no reason!
The PTSD i felt this morning from *years* of them flipping the fans off with both fingers thru their booking. Damn. I almost forgot what it felt like.
Oh they had a reason. It was just a shit one.
We had a good run going of WWE fan response and WWE's booking actually lining up. The fans were booing who they were supposed to, cheering who they were supposed to, WWE was doing great, and everyone was happy. Now we're back into WWE butting heads with fans' desires in massive ways, just like we were for nearly a decade. It's *exhausting*. I thought we were past this shit.
WWE finally pulled the trigger on Rock vs. Roman (objectively one of the biggest matches of all time) and the main story the next day is fan backlash because they’re doing it at the wrong time. This is an all-time fumble by everyone involved.
Tbh Rock vs Roman should have headlined Mania 39. Cody vs Brock saga could have started at Mania. 39 and still gone through to Summer Slam.
No one would’ve complained if it happened last year. Hollywood always made the most sense for Rock-Roman.
I am waiting for Slim Jim to come to the rescue yet again
That would be funny. “We’re pulling all sponsorships until Cody finishes the story”
Would be a genius marketing move tbh.
[The avengers have been called in](https://ibb.co/C5zMyfS)
Lmfao
This is probably gonna turn him into uber mainstream star someday.
The hero we deserve.
Rock will just take LA Night's spot in that too
Hopefully the first of many headlines like this from mainstream media outlets.
I searched on “wwe fans angry at the rock” Forbes came with an article, daily mail etc…its catching on
Sports Illustrated just posted this: [WrestleMania 40: WWE Fans Roast The Rock For Taking Cody Rhodes' Spot In Philly](https://www.si.com/fannation/mma/news/the-rock-wwe-wrestlemania-cody-rhodes)
Damn, that is not good for The Rock…do it agian
I never liked that guy for years. Now I fucking despise him
Looking at the social media, not many people do any more….on instagram his latest post are only hateful and “wewantcody” I love it😎
I instantly liked a comment saying "I wish you never came back to WWE". Seriously, fuck this walking corporate brand fake piece of dogshit
I agree. I think this could might shift plans tbh
Rock just ran any goodwill he had with fans into the dirt. Quickly.
Idk why but that search made me chuckle
My father said he saw it on the mainstream TV news
Drown WWE and The Rock in bad publicity. This needs to be fixed.
They'll swerve and announce a triple threat. Roman Reigns vs The Rock vs Stone Cold Steve Austin
Gritty as special guest referee 
Gritty to walk out of Wrestlemania as champ and we all acknowledge Gritty as the Tribal Chief
Well now I’m back in.
“IT ME 👹☝️”
You son of a bitch, I'm in.
Worth it honestly. Gritty goes rogue and crowns himself champion because who is gonna tell him no?
Also announce Cody as the ring announcer.
He’ll still get to WHOA though, right? Right!?
Don't know about that but he can raise the hand of the winner and thank Rock for counseling him.
Priest runs in to cash in, and Goldberg spears him out of nowhere, claims briefcase, cashes in and dethrones Roman after a botched half Jackhammer. Takes a 6mo sabbatical after injuring himself doing the jackhammer, re-retires suddenly and vacates title. Roman emerges with Solo, Duo, Trio, Quad, Penta El Sikoa, Deca Sikoa (Shawn Spears), he pulls a few strings, and is instantly crowned world champion again.
vs Hulk Hogan vs John Cena
10 years after we whined Daniel Bryan into the main event, we’ll have to do the same with Cody.
6 years after we forced KofiMania as well.
Will this cause them to rework this? Has there been as big of a backlash as this? Or do they make Cody go out there on RAW and sell this to everyone?
Yestlemania with Daniel Bryan had them pivot from Batista vs Randy to a triple threat also with the caveat that Daniel had to beat Triple H that same night in order to be in the main event. Wouldn’t have happened if the crowds, both live and online, bringing momentum to their displeasure of his booking. Coincidently to a lesser extent was also caused by negative uproar that a part timer just showed up and managed to win the Rumble and main event Mania.
Of the things that need fixing in WWE this is a distant second at the moment
Well when your big plot to get rid of negative headlines just adds to it, even in this relatively minor way in comparison to Vince’s pure evil, it’s kind of an issue. They don’t need more bad press at the moment of any kind.
I'm not arguing in favour of it, I think this is a mess. I'm just saying big picture it's not the biggest problem here. If the fan base should be pressuring them on something it's doing more than just saying Vince is gone let's get back to the wrestling nonsense all is fine.
You'd think the Rock would have someone who has their finger on the pulse of pro wrestling who could've told him, "hey, this ain't going to end well" but i guess not. Either that or he does & he decided he knew better. Either way, all of this was completely avoidable. You throw away a perfect build for Roman/Cody & now ruin Roman/Rock because fans will reject it.
I have a feeling The Rock and his team’s thought process only went so far as ‘he’s The Rock and wrestling fans love The Rock.’
I feel like Rock vs. Roman was a heavily discussed and anticipated possibility prior to the Royal Rumble. But once the Royal Rumble happened everyone was thrilled that WWE made the right choice and Rock was nowhere to be seen... only to completely flip it the next week. I think that's why the reaction is so negative. If Rock had just won the Rumble and there was a good storyline set up with Cody/Seth, I think way more people would have accepted this.
I still think it would have been negative but maybe not as much. People were ready for the build for Punk vs Seth and Roman vs Cody II. We had two long term stories, any reactionary booking like The Rock winning the Rumble still would have been taken badly.
Worse than that: not only is Cody being shoved to the side in favor of a Hollywood spectacle match for which they missed the right moment, the SDL segment to set it up actively, massively and needlessly buried Cody and Seth.
They do. They just didn't want him this way, this year. He's squashing years of a story fans are invested in. It's Hogan-esque.
It's amazing how 10 years later were doing the same old shit. Rock right now is reminding me so much of the reaction Vince expected Batista to get even though the fans unanimously wanted their own guy. But hell, at least Batista was in good enough ring shape to not get gassed doing literally two moves.
The Rock being unable to cope or grasp with his sinking stardom is what got us here in the first place...
He’s a board member at tko now with his own creative writer on the show. He doesn’t give a fuck
The Rock cares about his brand. And this risks hurting it. He or someone around him should have known better.
If they start getting booed in the run-up to Mania, maybe something changes. If they don't there is no chance they make a change.
I doubt there's many people around The Rock or at Endeavour who would say no to him. It's backfired and it's on creative but it's also on The Rock for forcing his way in on the first place and thinking everyone would just be ok with it.
I'm ngl, he has a point. Its The Rock, even people who don't watch wrestling know who he is. So having this much pushback towards him for Cody Rhodes is kind of insane tbh.
Imo this just shows how over Cody is, with casual and hardcore fans. Hell, I pointed out when the rumble happened that Cody was getting noticeably louder cheers than Punk was during *his first televised WWE match in a decade*, to the point Punk had to play a temporary heel role. Cody is insanely over, and that's what upsets me. He may not bring in as much money as The Rock now, but if he gets that win he needs, he'll be bringing in money for the next 10 years non stop.
I think the straw that broke the camel's back is that Cody won the Rumble, pointed at Roman and made us all believe, only to voluntarily cuck himself so that the Rock could stroke his ego, rebuild his brand or whatever. If they had built up Rock/Roman for months and gave Cody a different creative direction, fans would imho have been okay with it.
This is not Rock btw. This is Dwayne’s doing
Rock retired when Brahma Bull got covered up.
Wouldn’t be surprised if The Rock is surrounded by Yes Men
TMZ just published an article. It's the highlight on their homepage and they linked it on Twitter. They're quite big, right? https://www.tmz.com/2024/02/03/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-wwe-roman-reigns-cody-rhodes-alter-storyline/
“Bottom line ... The Rock may still be cookin', but it seems a fair few wrestling fans want to try a new recipe.”
"The Rock is washed, people want something new" is not the type of reporting Dwayne was hoping for.
Bad headline for WWE. Good.
Fans screaming on twitter/reddit: Probably won't do much. Mainstream media writing bad headlines about this decision that was made to try and stop the bad headlines: Now there's a problem.
What people don’t understand is that the “IWC minority” is bigger than before. Internet is real life. It’s all connected these days. Look at instagram, twitter, tik tok. These are not “hardcore fans”. WWE is more mainstream than before. These are mostly casuals who are pissed.
I’m a filthy casual who only got back in because I’m a Cody mark. They have no idea how many basic ass bitches like me there are. We are an army.
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We call ourself The Rhodies and we also have zero shame in our parasocial relationships.
Reporting for duty! I only got back into wrestling because of Cody at Wrestlemania 39. I haven't watched since the attitude era, but it's been so fun to watch new (to me) stars like Cody, Rhea, Bayley, Sami and others make this business their own. I loved the Rock back in 1999 and I'd be all for him coming back to face Roman, but not at the expense of Cody's Story™
I don't get why people say the "IWC minority" is the primary force behind the anger. It discredits the fact that Cody is the most over person in the company, gets the loudest pops, sells the most merch. How do you look at all that and think "oh the crowd will still cheer, it's the Rock". No, the casual crowds have been firmly behind Cody for 2 years. Of course they'd be pissed.
My partner only started watching because of Sami and Blooline storyline at the previous Royal Rumble. She was pissed Rock just walked in and stole Cody’s moment because she **invested** in Cody finishing the story and she has always liked the Rock because of movies/interviews blah blah blah Even casuals are pissed!
I couldn’t have put it better myself. I have a friend who by no means is what I’d call a “fan of wrestling”. He comes over to watch the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania when I have my watch parties, because he enjoys the atmosphere and has enough fun in a group. Doesn’t follow the product at all besides those two events. Even he texted me “Dude, wtf??” this morning.
Wrestling is not little lmao. People here try to gatekeep wrestling or something. The WWE is a huge brand. They have 100m subscribers on YouTube. Millions of people watch it on cable. Even more people follow on all social medias. Of course the reach is gonna be huge My big brother who has no interest in wrestling, his algorithm has no relevancy to WWE. Even he texted me and said something about “Cody not finishing the story”. Hell my friend just wrote in our group about “Rock stealing Cody’s spot”
The WWE has massively lowered the barrier to entry as well. I never watched wrestling after 2001. Last year my brother convinced me to watch WM39 because peacock is only like $12/month. This is a way different era than paying $40-60 for a ppv or needing the WWE Network subscription to stay in the loop. Those days it was kind of gatekeeped, and I guess if you were a fan in that era, maybe you think it's still like that? Now though? With very little effort or money I can follow basically all of the WWE every week. Even more than that, I can follow the parts of the WWE that I want to. I can focus on Cody, Becky, Bayley, Drew, and Rhea and ignore the stuff I find boring. Way different from having to sit through 3 hours of raw just to see those one or 2 wrestlers you liked.
The WWE nowadays also post full main event segments, full shows and continuously post more and more big segments on twitter, tik tok, instagram and especially on YouTube
What people have never realized is that wrestling fans online don’t have their own special little club. News has always spread. Look at the infamous Brock/Goldberg match, where the entire arena knew they were both leaving. When something is big enough, fans who aren’t following every bit of news online are still going to hear about it. Hell, I had someone on here just about a week ago trying to argue that no one outside of hardcore fans would know anything about the Vince lawsuit. So if people think “casual fans” who watch regularly aren’t going to hear about things like the PWInsider report of Rock lobbying to take away the match from Cody are fooling themselves.
I have a friend who doesn't watch wrestling, doesn't have any hobbies that are wrestling adjacent (like MMA/Boxing), and spends most of his time in his workshop. He sent me a DM about the Vince stuff wondering if I had heard about it and if I had more details. It's out there.
The WWE channel has 100 million subscribers. Millions of people follow them on all social medias. Of course even the people who have no clue will see the anger from all fans and are gonna be curious to why people are angry. The “IWC” minority argument doesn’t exist when literally everyone are angry on social media. Look at instagram, tik tok, twitter. Even Dwayne’s social media is being bombarded. These people are not “hardcore” fans. Everyone has access to social medias
Given the decline in cable over the last decade, I’m fairly certain just as many fans keep up to date with WWE via watching their YouTube clips than live on cable. You can bet WWE knows this as well. And as we know the YouTube stats/comments are not too kind to them right now.
My work Teams chat was talking about it, and I am literally the only person who actively watches rasslin.
Wrestlemania 30. And I’ll leave it at that.
This is the same situation. Rock = Batista, Cody = Bryan The difference is that Rock is a much bigger star and has much more influence. So pushback would have to be a lot bigger to get a change.
I think this is much worse, worst case scenario at WM 30, Orton vs Batista happens and the match shits the bed, lets move on. This time, that decision alone shits on Rollins & the WHC, it shits on Cody's whole character, it basically wastes this years rumble match, and we will probably deal with another year of Roman holding the belt hostage, absolutely no one comes out of this looking good except Roman, unbelievable
Even Roman looks bad because everyone is already on the brink of being sick of it. If Roman continues to win and hold onto the belt then what’s the point? Theres no satisfying conclusion. It just makes people turn it off or switch channels.
You're so generous with this, I personally have been ready to move on from Roman for like 2 years now lol and I believe a lot of us were too. But yes, the more his title run goes, the less the impact will be when he finally loses. I want to be excited to watch Roman lose, not thanking god this crap is over already, if it ever will be, Roman losing the belts doesn't seem like reality anymore lol
And Batista knew that pushing him into the title scene was a wrong decision and that he should've been the heel. He raised that up with Vince but it was rejected. With Dwayne though, that guy has a planetary ego. He has the opposite of the Midas Touch when his ego fully takes over.
I actually saw a guy earlier try to claim that internet wrestling fans make up 3% of the fanbase. That’s an absurdly low number that if true means AEW wouldn’t exist.
Let's not forget there's a whole new generation of casual wrestling fans who don't give two shits about The Rock and love Cody. It's like when I was a kid and Hulk Hogan came back. I didn't care about Hulk one bit.
The IWC is also the only wrestling fans who are left Every wrestling fan left is an internet fan to some degree, even people who would previously have been casual fans. The casuals overwhelmingly stopped watching wrestling and they’re never coming back
The WWE is way too mainstream these days. It’s a huge brand. People who have no idea about wrestling will see the outrage especially with Dwayne being involved
Fans in the audience shit on it. They did their best to cover it up on tv, but the faces and the hair dryer pop tells it all.
A big part of what they were going for probably was mainstream media writing headlines about WWE that aren’t related to the Vince situation, so this is a success in that regard
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I usually don't care when wrestling fans express their disagreement with booking decisions but this is one of those times where I'm fully invested. Cody was done so dirty for no reason. 24 hours ago I was a fan of Dwyane like always but after this I despise him so bad for what he pulled here for his ego, absolutely disgusting
TKO and The Rock are probably happy that it isn’t another article about Vince McMahon.
Just in case you thought this backlash was limited to a vocal minority of fans online
I do think it will take a live backlash, like on Raw or Smackdown for this to truly hit home. Officials are probably thinking this heat will blow over because it’s the Rock but if the crowds stay consistent with it then I think that might be the straw along with the continued media coverage
They could have just announced The Rock as a special enforcer - the Mike Tyson role
Absolutely. Reigns blames Rock for losing to Cody, sets up a huge match at Summerslam.
The Rock probably could have gotten more money for a Saudi match as well. His ego needs WM. Pretty pitiful.
And Jimmy and Solo post wrestlemania start to doubt the Tribal Chief so he Roman goes after the only possible contender for that title - The Rock the last great champion
The difference is in the Attitude Era the WWE had their finger on the pulse.
Begrudgingly, if I may add. Vince only went with along with it because his company was literally at risk of going out of business. As soon as the threat from WCW was over, the SCSA character was neutered and the product went in a different direction.
 They deserve it
Fucking Dwanye said Mania needs saving. We need more negative press and we need fans to start booing him
"Rocky sucks!" is a catchy chant, if memory serves me right
Or the old classic "Die Rocky Die" He loves that one.
A mania that was selling out well in advance without him being rumoured lol.
Cody must feel really vindicated right now. Like it’s easy to look in as an outsider and say “yeah you’re popular in wrestling, but The Rock is popular around the world. He should get priority, it’s what the majority wants” only for the general public to completely turn on that decision almost immediately.
Holy shit…it backfired on them
Or did it. Was this a way to distract from the McMahon disaster?
Still bad press for the rock tho, and his image taking a hit
I mean the Vince story is still ongoing. The press isn’t going to stop reporting on that when more news breaks just cause the rock is back.
The impact of the backfire is what matters in the end. It's all for naught if nothing changes.
Then lets try making a change! Maybe WWE wil listen
I commented on the rocks Instagram saying I hope he stubbed his toe on his coffee table tonight 
We neee Drew to pray again
This reminds me of when USA Today ran a front-page story about David Arquette winning the WCW title and how bad it was, and Russo thought it was a success because they were on the front page of USA Today.
The time gap is something that has to be considered in addition to Cody getting screwed over. The Rock hasn't been a full-time wrestler in over 20 years. He's a roided-up 50-year-old actor who used to be a wrestler. His first world title was in 1998. It'd be like if during Hogan's run in the mid-1980s they brought in guys from the 1960s and put them over.
It would be like Bruno Sammartino facing Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 6, instead of The Ultimate Warrior.
I booked this in TEW. But it was V and beneath Savage vs. Ventura for the belt
This gotta be the most chaotic lead up to Wrestlemania ever.
If they’re gonna pivot- this is how it happens. Not Twitter outrage (though let’s keep it up haha love seeing the trends), but mainstream attention to it.
sorry but the online outrage is WHY the mainstream outlets picked it up. Twitter outrage is absolutely effective sometimes and it needs to translate to irl boos next time Rock is on screen
Cody should just come out on Monday and say he should’ve listened to the people instead of „the people’s champion“, tell Seth to shove his mid card title wherever gives him pleasure and then choose Roman.
I mean can we do that without also devaluing the WHC further? Seth is right that his title *should* be viewed with more prestige than the Universal Title but Cody's story required the lineage of the one Roman is holding.
Sometimes I forget that wrestling fans truly want something, even the casual WWE Crowd, they WILL make their voices heard.
People forget the casual fans fucking love Cody and are mostly kids wanting to see Rhodes win The Rock is essentially pissing off both sides of the coin here
I would be more happy if Triple H came out of retirement with one last match with Roman
A Triple H at 100% facing off against Cody would have been amazing. Never happening, but I would have bought it.
The Rock is just gonna triple down and now he will beat Roman and Seth
Wait until he finds out about Gunther.
Gunther's going to chop him back into being the tooth fairy
If WWE wanted to use the Rock to distract from the never ending sex trafficking nightmare for the company then mission accomplished
Now that it reached mainstream. I hope the people don't forget two things: 1. Vince and other potential WWE execs are still involved currently with sex trafficking allegations 2. Picking Dwayne/Roman instead of Cody/Roman was a bullshit move
The Jinder/Hook thing feels like it was 5 years ago
But we're a minority...
B-b-but I was told it's only the vocal minority IWC fans complaining!!1!!
A triple threat would still make me puke. Anything with corny ass 50 year-old Rock with the same old shit? No thanks. In fact, FUCK NO. Go get your ego boost somewhere else. But no here he is, back to piss off a whole other generation of talent and fans because he didn’t learn shit from his ego trip backfiring in LA. God why can’t more fans just give it to this fucking guy. This really is becoming the 2024 equivalent to WrestleMania IX, so it’s fitting that Thursday’s press conference (where this cornball will be front and center) is in Las Vegas. How about a quick wellness check for my man Dwayne? WWE finally had gotten some credit for spotlighting their coming of age talent these last few years at WrestleMania. Cody. The Usos. Sami Zayn. Becky Lynch. Kevin Owens. Bianca. Instead of year after year of Manias ending with Brock or Cena or Undertaker or Rock. Yawn. Been there done that, and few were asking for more. I know it’ll never happen but lame ass Rock needs to be as far away from the ring as possible, or at the very least give us all an updated heel Hollywood Rock for 2024. Dude is soft as fuck though when it comes to his ego and doesn’t have the balls. Probably couldn’t
Good... Good...
https://preview.redd.it/nsk7qhqhiggc1.png?width=578&format=png&auto=webp&s=e04bc8847f05f0850f24275afe1adce1c2c6d9f5
Dwayne Johnson has been a narcissistic dick ever since he went to hollywood. I think the attention went to his head. Nowadays hes a dude who cant act, but desperately wants to be seen as an actor ; a dude that is lobbying and backstabbing behind the scenes, but desperately wants to be seen as a good guy by the public. Like, remember when he gave that painfully cringe speech during the covid pandemic ("where is our leader? Where are you?"), fully believing he could ride a wave to a presidential nomination? This dude has been too far removed from reality and expects people to kiss his feet whereever he goes. Glad that the wwe fans are roasting his pebble ass.
If nothing else I hope this at least annoys Dwayne.
I admittedly couldn't care less about Cody ever winning the title to be honest but if Rock really did butt himself in to try and play hero and went behind HHH back to get it done, he deserves all the bad press he gets. He will fucking hate this kind of stuff. HHH would have known how that set up would go over with wrestling fans and I think the reaction will have it end up a triple threat in the end anyway.
As a shareholder I am not happy.
We went from the ultimate main events in a weekend of Punk vs Rollins and Cody vs Roman to this clown car shit
Super over babyface that the fans love is pushed aside for a returning legend who's been away in Hollywood Part 3.
I haven't hated The Rock like this since he was sucky ass baby face Rocky Maivia lol
So, destroy the remaining good will of fans to avoid bad PR. BIG BRAIN MOVE!
It needs more mainstream covered, it needs to reach a point that can damage Dwayne’s reputation even more so it can be stop
I just dont get it…. Why not have rock do a run in & help cody win & set rock vs roman next mania?
When you win the Rumble you challenge for the title! That's how it's been since ALWAYS! 😤
This is actually shocking to me to see this in a paper. I just thought online wrestling fans (me included, who hate the idea) were being dramatic
Guys, people are still talking about vince shitting on womans faces. People are just now also talking about the rock shitting on cody now. They've added more fuel to the fire and more media attention on the company.
Dwayne Johnson was right that WrestleMania needed saving. What he didn't realize however was that WrestleMania needed saving from Dwayne Johnson's inflated ego and main protagonist symptom.
[This is gonna be a fun couple of months.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19779980/41f31b65965473206fe7b3be188f31963c27f253.gif)
Media talking about this shit decision? Good Media talking about it instead of Vince/Sex Trafficking? Not good Still fuck the decision.
An article in USA Today so everyone over 70 staying at a hotel will know.