Thinking of the Rock/Cody Mania situation and am reminded of that Conan O'Brien joke when he lost the Tonight Show. "To the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life…unless Jay Leno wants to do it too."
— Trevor Dame (@TrevorDame) January 2, 2024
I was sitting at home, minding my own business, watching the University of Michigan continue to prove the universe does not arc toward justice, when a friend sent a text.
I’ve known Shawn Stidham for 20 years. He’s the best radio host in the history of wrestling. Stidham and Rhode Island’s Rod Siciliano were kind enough to let a stuttering Midwest kid with a slow yarning draw on their radio shows during the Monday Night Wars.
He’s covered local sports for years on the radio, acted on stage and in film and somehow managed one-on-one interviews with all of the 1996 Chicago Bulls prior to the beginning of their second three-peat.
I’m not sure if he’s interviewed The Rock, but he’s interviewed nearly everyone else. His long-running show The Wrestling Guys was on a 50,000 watt radio station and was the first wrestling radio show to have a booth at a WrestleMania. Much of what you hear on podcasts – whether from the sites, wrestlers, Conrad, Chris Jericho or Steve Austin – that format and the way to do it were put in place by The Wrestling Guys years before.
So I had great interest in what Stidham shared with me concerning the career woes and wrong turns by Dwayne Johnson the last few years in film.
Treating media studios like wrestling bookers and campaigning for roles like you’re competing for a main event slot brought a crushing halt to his once sterling reputation and helped nail the door shut on a franchise.
This is why Johnson needs World Wrestling Entertainment more than it needs him at the moment. It’s why he’s cashing in that card for the Head of the Table match, with Roman Reigns. (I can only imagine such a match with Jon Moxley and Atsushi Onita.)
Dwayne needs to get his groove back
Johnson bumped egos with Vin Diesel while working on the Fast and Furious franchise. According to an article in Fortune in March, Johnson’s demands of the DC Studios while playing Black Adam were major factor in the DCU films not panning out.
Johnson, it seemed, didn’t want to match up with Shazam (played by Zachary Levi) but a opponent – Superman, played by Henry Cavill, who appeared in a post-credit cameo in the Black Adam movie.
“Johnson’s plan of becoming the apex of the DC universe backfired in a matter of months when both he and the past decade’s Superman, Henry Cavill, were unceremoniously sacked last December by DC Studios.”
From Fortune: “Dwayne tries to sell himself as bigger than the movie,” a Hollywood executive told TheWrap under anonymity. “Instead of making a movie, he wants to extend his brand make a brand centered on himself.”
Johnson’s ex-wife, Dany Garcia, represented Cavill as well as her ex-husband. Cavill fired her earlier this year. DC fired Johnson and Cavill.
Johnson’s flailing goodwill took another beating during his ill-advised social media campaign to garner donations for victims of the wildfires in Hawaii. Standing alongside Oprah in numerous ads and commercials, the two urged people to donate to help wildfire victims – which is a good thing. Except millionaires and billionaires asking people to donate money has a dynamic lack of self-awareness.
So Johnson is back on WWE, after showing up in Colorado a few months ago for Smackdown and then the Colorado State at Colorado game so he could market the hell out of his Project Rock Under Armour gear.
Johnson has 11 projects in various stages of production, according to the Internet Movie Database – most are sequels to previous Johnson flicks (one is a Santa Claus movie). He needs to rebuild his base, he needs people to buy tickets and that starts with WWE.
Johnson returned to Raw on Monday, taking out Jinder Mahal after Paul Levesque promised a former WWE champion to appear. Johnson then dropped a not-so-subtle hint that he wanted Roman Reigns, echoing thoughts he put together during his last WWE appearance. This is a booking Johnson has teased for 10 years, and now he’s cashing in. But it’s not in the best interest of the company.
WWE’s current success was built on its current roster and new talent. Cody Rhodes is the anti-Rock if there was one. He left WWE on his own accord, not for Hollywood, but for the indies. He joined the Bullet Club. He wrestled in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla as the Grandson of a Plummer. He made the damn list. He became ROH champ, he got the Money Shakes, half a decade later he was Executive Vice President of a pro wrestling company broadcasting for the same company as his dad.
When Rhodes lost in the WrestleMania main event last spring, fans nearly rioted online. Everyone wants the story to end, but the good ratings and gates WWE are currently enjoying are built around a Cody Rhodes WWE title reign that hasn’t happened yet.
He’s the company’s first true babyface since at least John Cena, maybe Steve Austin, if you look further back.
It took years for WWE to get over new babyfaces after having part-timers squash them repeatedly during one-off matches and feeding them to Reigns during the Reign of Error. It finally paid off with the Bloodline storyline, but it took years and it ran much of the top talent out of the company.
Johnson’s marketing problems are his own and he’ll always think he’s bigger than WWE – and he probably is. Yeah, he’ll bring in gates and he’ll bring in sales. He’ll be a big boost for Mania – like it needs it. But there’s other problems ahead, and WWE should remember its own myth making.
Hulk Hogan, who had Hulkamania running wild in the American Wrestling Association in 1983, was poised as the next champion. He wrestled Nick Bockwinkel in a series of matches, usually having decisions reversed after fans thought he won the title. By the end of the year, Hogan (who had already won his first world title in New Japan) couldn’t get the title.
The reasons – or perceived reasons – Verne Gagne didn’t see Hogan as a viable champ because he was lacking as a wrestler. Bockwinkel and other traditional world champions had true wrestling kudos and ability and could protect the title. Hogan didn’t have any amateur background and he wasn’t known as a tough guy. Despite what the fans were saying with their money, the story goes, Gagne stayed old school and stayed with the old school wrestler while Hulkamania and Hollywood walked out the door.
The truth is a little different than the myth, but not much. Gagne stayed in his lane and wasn’t thinking ahead. The WWF grabbed most of AWA’s top talent in one of the most predatory raids of any wrestling company. Hogan was among them, who let without notice and quickly went to work helping Vince McMahon Jr. start knocking AWA television off local stations in place of the WWF.
Johnson is not the future of the company and he isn’t the present. He’s going to bring ratings and gates, but how long that holds will remain a mystery.
WWE is now at an interesting crossroads. Rhodes is the guy in the company. It’s not Reigns and it’s not CM Punk. But Hollywood is now the old and Rhodes represents the new. The heir apparent is the grandson of a plummer who plied his way to the top by going his own path.