WWE News: Rock's Early Return Will Increase Hype for WrestleMania Match

The Rock has decided that WresteMania is too far away and will now make his return to in-ring action with WWE in November at the Survivor Series. He will be a part of team with John Cena in a 5-on-5 elimination match.

The news was broken via Rock’s official Facebook page on Friday, with a message attached that read, “I'm not waiting til WrestleMania 28...I'm coming to Survivor Series in November and ELECTRIFYING New York City like never before!”

Under normal circumstances I would think that this is a bad move for WWE, just giving away Rock’s return bout in a tag team match at Survivor Series, but I actually think that this is a smart move for both WWE and the Rock-Cena feud.

Rock and Cena were always going to jump-start the build for their WrestleMania match on this show. Rock said that he was coming to Survivor Series weeks ago in a YouTube shoot promo, so there was no shock value in him coming back.

But we did not know in what capacity he was coming back, and we have already paid to see him just do a run-in on Cena way back at WrestleMania 27 in that forgettable WWE championship match with Miz.

So why would we pay another $45—or $55 if you like HD—just to see Rock and Cena talk and then get physical?

We don’t want to see that again, so the next best option is to put Rock and Cena in a match together in which they are on the same side fighting to take down someone else.

This prevents them from doing any spots with each other, and when one of them eventually turns on the other one—likely Cena on Rock because Cena has to be the heel in this feud—it will only increase the anticipation for their WrestleMania match.

If they were on opposing teams and had to do spots with each other in the match, it would be a different story because then there would be no real need to watch their WrestleMania match.

And with Rock confirmed as a wrestler on this show, the buy rate is going to easily be the second-best of this year, and the best number that a Survivor Series show has done in years.

It is no secret that the business side of WWE has taken a huge hit this year, with the exception of WrestleMania, and the company is in desperate need of some big angle to get people interested in the shows again.

As much as I love CM Punk, he is not a mainstream star and they have killed his angle to the point where you don’t care about what he is trying to do anymore.

The only option that WWE had was to bring Rock back for a tag match with Cena in order to begin his build with Cena for WrestleMania 28 in earnest.

Of all the terrible decisions that WWE has made this year, and there are a mountain of things that you can choose from, having Rock work in a tag team match with Cena at Survivor Series is way down at the bottom of the list.

Now if WWE does something stupid at Survivor Series, which is entirely possible, like have Rock and Cena do spots on each other for five minutes, then this becomes a terrible decision. But as things stand right now, this is a smart move both from a storyline and business perspective for WWE.