LogFAQs > #907471483

Zeus posted...

I certainly disliked Brock long before that. Partly because he was *really* good at being a heel (so was Rapper Cena), but also because he never took the business all that seriously. The fact that he was busted for steroids in MMA, squats on the title, etc, is just icing on that cake.

YOU might have disliked him, but the majority of the crowd didn't.

In spite of shitting on him and Goldberg when both left the company around the same time back in the day, crowds loved him after his recent return, and that (combined with effective match booking) is why the rematch of Brock/Goldberg was so warmly received. The outright hate didn't start until WWE started pushing the narrative of him as an absentee champion who didn't give a damn about the business (which, while true, wasn't really how most fans saw him in the kayfabe sense until then), and kept giving Roman rematch after rematch after rematch (when he didn't really deserve any of them in kayfabe). The Brock matches against Goldberg, Samoa Joe, Braun, and even the threeway with Kane didn't inspire the same sort of existential dread most people had going into Brock/Roman at SummerSlam.

(And Paul Heyman is responsible for a LOT of Brock's positive image. It's true the crowd likely would have turned out him faster without Paul there)

Brock was the ideal heel champion - he got heat, but not the same sort of heat Roman gets. With Brock, the crowd was generally in a "We want to see a beloved babyface beat this dastardly heel, because we are willing to buy into the narrative" mindset, whereas with Roman the boos are more "We're tired of your shit and just want this guy to go away, because the story you're telling sucks."

It's the difference between hating the villain in a movie because he's well-written EVIL, and hating the villain in a movie because it's a bad movie. It's why so many people loved Darth Vader in the original trilogy Star Wars films, in spite of rooting against him - but also why so many people thought Anakin Skywalker was a little turd and hated him in the prequels.

Also, make no mistake. If the WWE and Brock had come to terms on pay (which is the one thing Brock's booking always hinges on), you can absolutely bet that he would still be holding the title, and would still have it when he competed in UFC again, because Vince would absolutely orgasm if he could talk Brock into wearing the WWE title to MMA matches, and doubly so if he won and became a "two-sport champion". That would generate the kind of PR Vince absolutely loves. They were literally meeting hours before SummerSlam to decide whether or not they could settle on a price both sides were willing to accept, and if they'd agreed, Roman almost certainly would have lost again.

Or, at the very least, Brock would have lost, but then gone after Roman and won it back again later.


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