Missed Chance?: The Rock And Mr McMahon Alliance 2003

[Y-2-Jay]

I am going to do these thread's where i talk about storylines/matches that could have been also known as "Missed chances" you can say if it was a missed chance for a awesome match or storyline and also why you feel it was either not a missed chance or why it was a huge miss.

My first "Missed chance" in this series is one i feel has not been discussed much as its mostly forgotten. Lets take you back to 2003, its No Way Out and The Rock who is fresh off a heel turn faces Hulk Hogan. In the end Hogan was screwed and McMahon fueded with Hogan for a bit and The Rock went to RAW the next night. But was there a missed chance of a McMahon/Rock partnership which could have led to a intresting storyline no doubt. So what do you say missed chance or not? And if you think so how would you have changed WMXIX?

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[Money Inc.]

To be honest,

The Rock going to Raw was one of my favorite story lines in the post attitude era. His promo that he cut in Toronto is top 5 all time for me.. and his feud with Austin was probably the worst of them all, but still very good.

Yes we can always wonder whether they missed something bigger, but IMO it's just like a bust: If he went on to do nothing, I'd agree with you. However he went over to Mondays and entertained.

"Finalllly the Rock has come back to TOR.... to TORNN, TO RUN HIS MOUTH ALL OVER YOUR CANDY ASSES"

"Mothercanucker"


Good thread.

 

[Guyzwitgunz]

He did not neccesarily need to have a partnership with McMahon. That had already happened in 1998/9 with the whole 'corporate champion' thing. Rock did just fine on his own during his last heel run.

 

[Carpathian Florist]

Well it could be looked upon as Vince "made" The Rock with the whole corporate thing, so it could easily be explained why Rock would side with him once again. With Austin turning heel at WMXIX they could have had Rock do the whole "if you can't beat them, join them" type thing and sort of revive the Two Man Power Trip storyline from a couple of years previous. I think the two biggest faces of recent WWE history combining to become the two biggest heels with Vince as a manager/backer could have been huge, if played out well enough they could build plenty of faces practically overnight with the amount of heat those 3 could have drawn.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

The most likely reason why this didn't happen, was that 2 months after that Rock was finished with wrestling altogether. He had his win against Austin at WM and then got crushed by Goldberg the next month at Backlash, and the most Electrifying man in sports entertainment was g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-GONE!

I don't honestly think that the disrespectful, cowardly Rock would have worked very well with the type of character the McMahon persona had developed into at that point. By this stage, Vince's character had stopped being the ruthless business man who simply backed the greediest horse at the time simply to screw over Austin. By 2003 he'd become the guy who simply liked to fuck with people's livelihoods by dragging them face down through the mud, and having them get beat on constantly by monster heels the whole time through.

Remember during that match with Hogan at WM XIX? When he gets the lead pipe from under the ring and they showed that shot from across the ring of him peering over the apron, with blood pouring out of his face, with that evil grin and sadistic look in his eyes? That imo, symbolised the Mr McMahon character finally living up to what JR had been calling him for so long, Satan himself.

Remember 2003 is also the year that:

- Vince dedicated himself to killing Hulkamania permenently, even exposing Hulk Hogan as 'Mr. America' to the world, so that he could fire him all over again.
- Zack Gowen was hired, fueded with Vince and was then promplty fired.
- Vince fought his own daughter in an 'I Quit Match' while he was strutting around with Sable on his arm.
- Vince conspired with Kane to help him bury the Undertaker alive after Taker threatened to make Vince pay for his crimes over the past year.

Now to me, pairing that kind of character up with the character of a pretty boy movie star who's always slagging off his won fans, boosting his own ego, picking on weaker superstars i.e. Hurricane, and running from a fair fight, does not sound like a pairing that would work very well.

It'd be like pairing Hornswoggle up with CM Punk during his straight edge heel run. The two characters are nothing alike and fans would find it hard to accept them working together no matter how seriously they portrayed it on screen.

If Rock had been staying for another year and his character slowly became more aggressive and ruthless, then i think that would be a half decent idea, but based on how things were at the time and the storylines that actually did follow on from that point in '03, i simply don't think it would have worked as well as say the HHH/Austin pairing did.