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The Rock vs. John Cena: The Real Story Behind the Most Realistic Feud in WWE
March 3, 2011
What we as fans of combat sports want to see is rivalries. Two guys who for whatever reason don’t like each other and who want to take each other’s heads off.
That’s what we as fans want. We want two guys who have a score to settle to get in the ring or the cage and duke it out until the better man is left standing. There’s no rocket science to how to get a rivalry started.
From the moment The Rock made his return, we all wanted to see him and one other man face to face. And that’s why some way, somehow the WWE needs to pull the plug on Cena-Miz, and go with the match we all want to see; The Rock vs John Cena.
These guys genuinely do not like each other. The reason that the promos from the past few weeks have been so great is because their disdain for each other is real in a sense. So how did it all start? In an interview with The Sun in 2008, Cena was posed with the question of how he felt about The Rock. This was his full response.
“This is my take on The Rock, and he's a genuinely nice guy. I've met him; he's a fantastic human being. What I kind of get peeved about, and I guess this is my flaw, my Achilles heel, I hear it every day with young talent, with mid card talent, with people aspiring to make it in this business; I hear 'I've wanted to do this my whole life.'
Rock falls into that category. He, at one point, loved wrestling and wanted to do this all of his life. Explain to me why he can't come back for a 15th Anniversary show or why he can't make an appearance at Wrestlemania. Simply put it's because he wants to be an actor. There's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with that. He's a very good actor, he's very successful, he's done very well for himself and associating with sports entertainment doesn't do much for his acting career. It only helps out the sports entertainment audience so I get why he doesn't come back.
Just don't f*** me around and tell me that you love this when you are just doing this to do something else. That's the only thing that gets me really pissed off.
It'd be fantastic. The people would go nuts, and that's the thing, he has so much admiration from our audience. One thing I've learned from being a wrestler, or being on the other side of the barricade and being a fan, you almost don't realize it as a fan because you are a fan so much, you just go to everything. Being on the other side I learned how much of their hard earned dollars are spent on our product. And to have that much admiration still, when he hasn't been around, hasn't been on TV, you gotta respect that from our fanbase and he just doesn't give anything back, man. I wish he'd just show up, just say "Hi" and leave, it's all he's gotta do. Do the eyebrow once and get out of town. That's one thing that sweats me.
But like I said, he is a great guy, but we all know now that he wants to be an actor. There's nothing wrong with that because he's truly found another passion. He's good at acting, his films make money.”
Now of course The Rock’s take on it is that he accomplished everything he could in the WWE then left to set a path, to open up a world of possibilities for wrestlers beyond the squared circle. With the recent successes of everything from WWE films to some wrestlers getting movie roles, I think it’s safe to say that The Rock did set a path that stardom in the squared circle could lead to stardom elsewhere.
This is the match we all as fans want to see. It wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feeling to see John Morrison hop in the Title picture, and to see Cena go one on one with the great one. The way things are set up now, either The Rock will end Wrestlemania shaking Cena’s hand, or Cena is going to turn heel, and we all know which one of those is more likely to happen. However if they do shake hands in the middle of the ring and squash their issue, it would kill the momentum of the biggest match WWE can put on right now.
So do the right thing WWE. Get Cena out of the title picture and have him go one on one with The Rock.