what have you done wwe you ********

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this shows how poor the wwe is nowadays where a guy who has come back "home" and is never ever leaving......left and came back and wins the wwe championship from a guy like cm punk who has worked his entire life to be champion just so they can get more publicity and more ticket sales for wrestlemania without any thought of how the other wrestlers feel about it.....i bet the guys in the back hated seeing that moment because at least punk deserved to be champion and had earned it but the rock must win just so we get the once in a lifetime match happen twice between cena and rock with cena's boring promos for 3 months.

but i guess its only 1 match at wrestlemania ruined the rest of the card should be ok. brock vs triple h possibly and undertaker vs ??? etc so not all is lost. just wish if they were going to use the rock for mania dont have him as champion he hasn't earned it and it looks ridiculous that a part time wrestler and full time actor is now the top champion in the company.

I don't think this is a relevant point to the debate above
But my gripe is: last year everyone complained that Cena v Rock at WM undermined the title and the feud should have had the title to be the main event...currently the title is involved in a potentially better feud now Cena doesn't have to carry it by himself for a year, but now suddenly neither of them deserve the strap :/

It’ll be interesting to see in the coming years when all of the old guard really cant be dragged out to get easy buys from casual fans. Will the likes of a Cena, Batista, Mysterio etc and the others in their 30s have the same pull as the older guys to bring in casual fans?
I'm not averse to it at present though as WWE are clearly going through another transitional period with a big shift towards Indy guys it seems and it will take a while for these guys to gain larger appeal.

I was never a huge Edge fan, I liked parts of his character and thought he was a little over rated in the ring. Bring him back now and I would mark out. I liked Batista but he was never on the same level as Rock, Austin, Taker etc. Bring him back now and I would mark out.
Is it just a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder....sort of?
Although thinking about it I'd never mark out for Mysterio. And I'm not sure how I would feel about a returning Cena say after five years out.

I didn't put Edge into the mix on that just because medically he does look that he cannot ever return. I suppose though Angle & Big Show could be added to that list of the 2000's guys.

In terms of Kayfabe - The Rock beat perennial number one contender John Cena in his first match for 9 years or whatever. This obviously puts him very high up by a kayfabe standpoint. Id suggest that makes him strong enough to beat Punk, especially combined with his legendary status and his physical condition.

If you're using real sport as your barometer then you have to take into account that it can happen. Not based on any past history, just that in real sport this could happen.

Still think its the best way to end Punk's reign. Highest profile feud of his career, hasn't lost it to anyone on the full time roster and he can compete for the belt once Rock is dethroned.

Feuding and losing to The Rock will do more for CM Punk than feuding and winning against anybody else on the full-time roster.

But feuding and winning against The Rock would've done so much more for CM Punk and wrestling in general.

Bah, we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.

It's lazy to suggest the rock is over the hill and bla bla bla, I mean for knee te commentators did the job for you with the Ali comparisons!

Last night's episode of WWE RAW scored a 3.68 (3.7) cable rating, with 5.02 million viewers. Those numbers are up 21% and 16%, respectively, from the 3.04 and 4.3 million viewers the week before. It is the first time that RAW has topped five million viewers since the 1,000th RAW and before that, the night after WrestleMania 28. The first hour drew 4.86 million viewers, the second hour drew 5.27 million viewers and the third hour drew 4.93 million viewers.

And there's why the Title is on Rock, #kneestofaces? #Bumstoseats more like

Hero wrote:

Last night's episode of WWE RAW scored a 3.68 (3.7) cable rating, with 5.02 million viewers. Those numbers are up 21% and 16%, respectively, from the 3.04 and 4.3 million viewers the week before. It is the first time that RAW has topped five million viewers since the 1,000th RAW and before that, the night after WrestleMania 28. The first hour drew 4.86 million viewers, the second hour drew 5.27 million viewers and the third hour drew 4.93 million viewers.

And there's why the Title is on Rock, #kneestofaces? #Bumstoseats more like

Devils advocate.

In a combination of the era and the individual who is ever gonna pull those beer again for wwe when the rock/Austin/aa era are properly gone?

I can see this from both sides of the coin to be fair. The Rock is an absolute one off. It’s a difficult one. The fact that he is in tip-top condition and can still more than go in-ring works massively in his favour. But I can see the frustration at a guy coming back after 10yrs to take the WWE Title from the guy who has arguably carried the company for the last 2 years. It appears to be an injustice. So Punk has beaten the full time wrestlers on the roster time after time yet The Rock comes back and beats Punk in his first match for a year. From the naked eye that is unrealistic and undermines everyone else on the roster. It’d been ‘slightly’ more believable if they aired video packages of The Rock training all year, showing him preparing for the match so atleast so it looks like he’s been working his butt off in order to be at the right level to compete with CM Punk. But as I say it’s a difficult one. The Rock is The Rock, no one will ever be like him and he only won the strap from a commercial perspective in that he can walk on talk shows in Mania season as the WWE Champion. Exposure, exposure, exposure.

Thing is. When Brock Lesnar returned after all them years everyone was up in arms that he didn’t go over Cena. So what would that have done for Cena losing to a guy who hasn’t ‘wrestled’ for 8 years? Shoe is on the other foot there.

Brock Lesnar is different in a sense in that at least he had been competing in a physical sport outside of WWE. That being said, I had no problem with Cena going over. After all, people like Cena laid down for Brock during his monster push 10 years back. The guy walked away from it when he really was "the next big thing". They weakened everyone to make him look good and in part it led to wrestling being in the state it's in now. He can't possibly expect that treatment again. He's getting $5m a year for these blink and you've missed it appearances. If Vince wants to slap a yellow mask on him and rechristen him Who Jr he should just take it.

With Lesnar losing his last 2 matches in UFC against Valesquez and Overeem then losing his first match back against Cena I actually feared for his reputation but wins and losses don’t matter for Lesnar. He is just a badass who wants to hurt people and will always be a massive draw.

It’s ironic how after losing to Mir and beating an average Herring that Lesnar walked straight into a title match against Couture. Did he get that because he earnt it? I don’t think so. He got it because he is Brock Lesnar. Just like The Rock got a title match against Punk.

But he was still very much active when he got that title shot.
If he decided to make a UFC comeback at 40, he'd be lucky to get a licence let alone a title shot.

Yes he was active but he had a record of 1-1. Does that warrant a title shot? Do you think anyone else would get a title shot in UFC with a record like that? He got it because of who he is.

It annoys me that The Rock beat Punk because I’m a huge mark for Punk. But it annoys me more because they put the strap on The Rock knowing full well that he’ll be passing it on to Cena at Wrestlemania. Cena doesn’t need a Wrestlemania moment like that. CM Punk needs a Wrestlemania moment like that. If they were so dead set on putting the title on Rock then they should have had him beat Cena at the Rumble then have Punk beat the Rock at Mania. I wouldn’t have had a problem with that because Punk needs it, whereas Cena doesn’t.

Mr H wrote:Yes he was active but he had a record of 1-1. Does that warrant a title shot? Do you think anyone else would get a title shot in UFC with a record like that? He got it because of who he is.

It annoys me that The Rock beat Punk because I’m a huge mark for Punk. But it annoys me more because they put the strap on The Rock knowing full well that he’ll be passing it on to Cena at Wrestlemania. Cena doesn’t need a Wrestlemania moment like that. CM Punk needs a Wrestlemania moment like that. If they were so dead set on putting the title on Rock then they should have had him beat Cena at the Rumble then have Punk beat the Rock at Mania. I wouldn’t have had a problem with that because Punk needs it, whereas Cena doesn’t.

Yup, spot on. I can't, even for the sake of debate, disagree with any of that.