What If the Rock Had Never Left the WWE to Go to Hollywood?

Now that the Rock is coming back for Survivor Series, fans both casual and devoted are getting excited for the main event.

It seems that even after all this time, the Rock is still relevant and can still "Bring It" when it comes to revenue and media attention.

Which leads to the question, what if he had never left?

What if the Rock had chosen to stay a wrestler and not go to Hollywood and become a movie star?

Most would like to believe that he would have made the WWE bigger than it is today.

After all, he came back just recently and immediately brought new eyeballs to the WWE and got the same cheers he got almost a decade ago.

The truth is that if the Rock had stayed with the WWE, he would have ended up like Hulk Hogan or John Cena.

He would have gotten stale.

Fans are able to see the Rock now and enjoy him in small doses.  He is a reminder of a different era, and is there just long enough to give fans that warm nostalgic feeling.

Anymore, though, and it would overstay its welcome.

The Rock still uses the same catchphrases he did so many years ago, and his character hasn't changed in the slightest.  He can still make people laugh.  He can still pull out fun one-liners.  But his character really is just the same as it was in the '90s.

The only reason people haven't turned against it and him is because he has been gone for so long.

The best example of this situation was Hulk Hogan.  Hogan was huge in the '80s, but he started to get stale in the '90s.

He finally had to turn heel to get people to start focusing on him again.  And even then it could be debated that it was about the NWO storyline more than it was about him.

The problem was whether the Rock was heel or face, he was the same character.  He was either the snarky, self-absorbed, anti-hero or he was the same thing but as a villain.

If he had stayed with the WWE, it would have gotten old, and he would have found his character not connecting with a new generation of wrestling fans.

He also couldn't have adapted to the changes the WWE made.

Could anyone really see him having stayed intact during the WWE PG era, which only seems to now be coming to a close?

His character would have struggled with not being able to say the word ass or any other curse word or slightly sexual innuendos.  It would have been the antithesis of what the Rock was.

And while being forced to make his character something it isn't would have been a travesty, not evolving his character would have even been worse.

It would have lead to fans hating him and his predictability.

Fans would have seen him each weekday in and out constantly asking them if they could smell what he was cooking.

And after a while, whatever it was, might have ended up getting overcooked.