Why The Rock vs. John Cena Has Sucked

Last year the WWE welcomed The Rock back with open arms and dollar signs in their eyes and quickly booked their attitudinal era star against the biggest, and most polarizing, superstar of this era, John Cena in a match at Wrestlemania 28. You read that correctly, there was a full year in between the announcement and the match. In today's wrestling world that is unheard of. The only difference between this feud and the old school feuds that would literally last for years is that while Rock and Cena would verbally disparage each other once every blue moon while the WWE served Cena a filler feud that really didn't have any consequences beyond the superstar feuding with Cena getting pushed back into secondary feuds and Cena moving on to his next pre-Wrestlemania snack and the Rock delivering mostly via satellite promos where his message and reason for wanting to do battle with Cena is because Cena has a vagina and is phony, private school rapper who mainly appeals to the kids that the WWE has decided to direct their programming to. That's it. Sure, there was a bland Survivor Series tag team match, but that was just to try add a layer of drama to this feud to get people to care. I'm going to show you why, no matter how hard the WWE tries, this just doesn't live up to the match that they are trying to remake in Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock that happened 10 years ago at Wrestlemania 18.
1. John Cena isn't taking The Rock seriously and it shows
Yes, I know this is supposed to make Cena look strong in the eyes of the fans because  Rock has basically emasculated Cena in everyone one of his promos, but for this match to mean anything Cena has to convey to everyone, especially his fans that their is a shot that he might lose on April 1st and he just hasn't done that. Compare a recent Cena/Rock promo to a Hogan/Rock promo.(Because as I said before this is closest comparison we can make to this)

Now Hogan/Rock

See the difference? Both Hogan and Rock are conveying that their match is going to be epic. That was when Rock was at his best and Hogan was far away from his prime, but the crowd still wanted to those two get it on because they believed that it meant something to both competitors to win. With Rock and Cena we get the feeling like no matter what happens both with just go on with their everyday lives, Cena still the top babyface of the wrestling world, and The Rock as the top action movie star in Hollywood. There are no consequences.

2. The Rock has lost his fastball

That was hard for me to type. When The Rock was at his apex I was a huge Rock fan. For years his shirt was the only WWE clothing I owned. The man was instrumental in teaching me most of my trash talking ability between the ages of 15 and 18. No one, maybe with the exception of Stone Cold Steve Austin, could touch The Rock in the promo department. He put butts in seat and sold PPVs by his mic work alone, whether he was a heel or face. The man could talk. Now? Now he is merely coming out, calling Cena a woman, and trying to get the crowd to chant whatever is written for him, and trying to get stuff trending on Twitter. There is no substance to the style. Compare one of Rock's early promos to one of his latest.

2012 Rock 

I don't know if WWE creative has written it to make Rock look weak or if Rock is purposely tripping over his words to help Cena with promo material, but it looks to me either The Rock has lost his ability promo ability from such a long layoff, or he is just going through the motions because, quite frankly, he doesn't need to be at the top of his game because he really doesn't need to be what he once was, the best promo man in the business.

This isn't to say that Wrestlemania itself will suck, it won't, it's Wrestlemania. However, if the WWE wants us to believe that this is the match of the decade, they're going to have to tell Cena to start making the audience feel as if there is a chance that there might be ramifications if he loses to The Rock, and have The Rock start actually having a message in his promos other than questioning Cena's sexuality, because if they don't the match of the decade will just be remembered as last match of Wrestlemania and both performers deserve much more, and we as fans deserve much more.