It made sense in my opinion. No torch needed to be passed as it was given to Cena without it being given. The Rock needed to show Cena that he still had it no matter how long he had been gone. Cena talked the most trash, but at the end of the day he put chewed more than he could swallow. This also goes to show you that our generation of superstars have something more than this generation. The Rock was fighting for his generation if you think about it. The Rock proved everyone wrong and he also showed that Cena is not superman.
I see what you mean, and I definitely respect where you're coming from here, but I didn't see it as a passing of the torch either. I saw it as further validating Cena and, more importantly, the current era as a whole over that of the previous one. This finish, to me, shows that the WWE is directly acknowledging that they were better before than they are now. Whether or not you or I feel that way, I think that's an incredibly bad idea from the perspective of business and makes most viewers have less reason to respect the industry as it is today.
Taking away the names and the story, the way I see it is: the number one guy in the business today lost to a legendary relic who hasn't had a singles match in close to 10 years. Since it's scripted that way, this isn't really The Rock being better than Cena. I think that on the contrary, the build up and match itself show that Cena has been at least on the level, but maybe even better, than The Rock has ever been. This loss is an admission from McMahon that the PG/reality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it era, while in full swing, is not as good as the era that it left behind on its bad day.
Unless they plan on reverting, which probably isn't going to happen (I hope, at least), that sounds like it would be absurdly demoralizing to fans of the current era and to the talent backstage who are working their hardest to live up to those who came before them.
I know I stretched this out, but this is actually a minor point to me. Again, I'd like to point out that I thought the match was fantastic, even with The Rock showing a little rust. For a guy who hasn't carried half a match for 10 years, he looked amazing, and I just hope he's a little more physically ready next time. Again (since people will mostly focus on my criticism above), while I have one or two MINOR complaints, the match was great, the build-up is among the best I've ever seen, and I feel that as fans, we got our money's worth.
