The Rock's Return Exposes WWE Restrictions on Current Superstars and Divas

The Rock exploded through the curtain Monday night, an electricity only he can generate coursing through Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena. He hit the ring, began to cut a fiery promo and captivated an audience that had, to that point, been fairly quiet.

From the interactions with fans donning costumes of their favorite wrestlers to the witty banter and physical confrontation with The New Day, Rock brought life to Monday Night Raw.

Is it a good idea to tease fans with appearances from someone as dynamic as The Rock, though?

Monday's appearance by The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment only served to expose the restrictions put on the Superstars and Divas of today's WWE roster. It heightened awareness of just how one-dimensional, scripted and uniform the product and its stars are, leaving fans longing for the next appearance by the Hollywood A-lister.

The Rock rose to prominence during the Attitude Era, a time of dynamic characters, compelling stories and improvisation of promos. While there were scripts, they focused more on bullet points rather than written dialogue. The result was performers speaking in their own voices, and audiences were thus able to find that emotional connection much easier.

Those who were able to thrive during that period were allowed to react and come up with responses to their rivals on the fly, and the outcome was a much more fluid and natural war of words than what today's fans are familiar with from the Superstars and Divas they watch on a weekly basis.

Never was that more evident than when Rock jumped off script to shine a light on the hardcore wrestling fans at ringside, costumed to look like their favorite wrestlers of eras gone by. Did it add to the overall quality of the promo? Absolutely not. What it did, though, was bring fun to a show that has not necessarily been associated with that concept in recent months.

One can even point to the fact that The Great One obliterated the line between TV-PG and TV-14, though to attribute WWE's problems to a television rating and the content it demands would be a major mistake often made when discussing the current product.

The problem is, when The Rock makes his march up the entrance ramp and through the curtain, the fans who have just been thrilled by the future Hall of Famer are left with the unfortunate realization that it is back to business as usual.

There will be a number of undefined characters and matches that no one will remember a week later, not to mention promos that sound more like an out-of-touch 30-something from the soap opera world scribbled them on a cocktail napkin than anything two natural rivals would ever say to each other.

The Rock's appearance just teased audiences with the great fun that wrestling once was, and now they have to delve back into the bitter reality of WWE programming in 2016.

While WWE had rewarded its audience with excitement and unmatched electricity in the form of The Rock, it was just as quick to pull it away. Whether the company realizes it or not, it had exposed every major issue with the modern-day product in the process, leaving fans to wonder why shows cannot be as fun and entertaining as they were before.

None of this is the fault of The Rock. Arguably the greatest pure entertainer to ever lace a pair of boots, he understands crowd psychology, knows what the audience wants and will give it to them, even if it is llama penises and the complete disregard of commentator Byron Saxton.

The bigger issue is WWE's failure to recognize the damage it is doing to its own product, or, even worse, the fact that the show has descended into the black hole of fun that it has.

The great Paul Heyman has repeatedly attributed Extreme Championship Wrestling's success to his ability to recognize the strengths of his roster and accentuate them, all the while identifying the weaknesses and hiding them, most famously in the 2004 WWE Home Video release The Rise and Fall of ECW.

Perhaps it is time WWE does the same.

Rather than trotting out the likes of The Rock, Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart to remind fans of eras gone by, it can focus on accentuating the positives of today's show, hide its negatives and put together a product that leaves fans wanting more of it rather than more of the historic episodes of Raw and SmackDown that they can find on WWE Network.

Until then, fans will be left scratching their heads, wondering how wrestling's greatest empire could have possibly fallen creatively as far as it has.