JaKyL25 posted...
Well yeah, people are bitter that The Rock retired while still in his prime, but it's his life, he has every right to.
The real sense of frustration though comes from him not only retiring, but essentially doing everything he could to completely distance himself from us. Dropped "The Rock" name for awhile, only cut a couple pre-taped promos during that entire stretch, and didn't appear live once for 6 1/2 years outside of inducting his father/grandfather into the Hall of Fame.
Did he "owe" anything to us? No. But it still leaves a bitter taste in peoples' mouths to see him just treat the business like an albatross he's trying to get rid of for over half a decade, when that business is the only reason he was able to move to acting in the first place.
And now it kinda feels like he's doing the same thing but trying to pay a bit more lip service to wrestling fans. "Hey guys, I love you, you are my lifeblood, I'll always be a part of you. Now if you'll excuse me I have an action scene to film. See you in November."
I mean, Cena's entire argument is "Rock doesn't care enough to show up" and Rock's counter-argument is "You idiot, I don't show up because I'm not employed, I clearly have other things I'd rather be doing" as if that doesn't prove Cena's point.
The problem is that I wouldn't WANT The Rock for 6.5 years. The Rock suffered from oversaturation from 99-01 and the fans responded accordingly. Imagine 6.5 more years of Rock appearing regularly in main events or the biggest storylines, with little-to-no interruption between the them (and he managed to stay very healthy in his 6 years with the company, so if he avoids injury he wouldn't have the big injury like Edge/HHH/etc. had). Quite simply put, it would be VERY easy for people to get sick of The Rock. Look how quickly they turned on Cena after less than a year as him champion. The same would happen to Rock. And unfortunately, Rock was in a position where going down to the mid-card for a period of time just wouldn't work.
As for distancing himself from the product, if I recall a lot of that happened around the same of the Chris Benoit Murder/Suicide. In fact, I believe the first movie to feature him as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was The Game Plan, a movie that came out 3 months after the incident. That, or it was the last one because it was too late to change the marketing on it. Either way, I think we all agree that it was definitely the best option for The Rock at the time because trying to promote family friendly movies while still being associated with the WWE wasn't going to work.
I think the main difference between prior to his return and now is that the WWE itself is trying to clean up it's image. It's entered the PG Era. And yes, Rock retains all his usual non-PG mannerisms (and we thank him for that) but the WWE is now much easier to tie himself to without it hurting his image. Plus, it helps that Rock is now returning to his action oriented roots with his last few films.
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TheRock ~ Death By Misadventure, Not Suicide
"Would've liked to see that." - Ayuyu on my boner