10 Biggest crowd reactions in WWE history

The Rock returns

After 7 long years, finally, The Rock came back to Monday Night Raw. It had been a long time since The Rock had left for Hollywood and quite honestly, the WWE had never quite managed to find a superstar as charismatic as him. The void left by him was too big to replace and when he did come back, the WWE Universe went mad over it. While viewers across the world were taken aback by his sudden return as the WrestleMania XXVII host, those in the audience showed the worth of the moment by creating one of the biggest pops in history.

Not only his return, he followed it up with a 15-minute long promo which included many of his signature catchphrases and had the crowd on their feet the entire time. He had returned as the guest host but also to kindle a feud with John Cena, which he established clearly in that very promo by ridiculing Cena. No matter how sporadic his appearances were in the next two years, the crowd cheered their hearts out that night for The Rock as they saw the People’s Champ step onto the WWE ring as a performer again, which few predicted.

Chris Jericho’s WWE Debut

Back then, in 1999, Jericho was one of the hottest superstars in the business after a successful stint with the WCW. As we have all come to know, he could do everything; being a great babyface, a heel, delivering great promos and in-ring matches as well. And when he joined the WWE, people were curious as to whom he would initially begin with, being such a talented superstar. And well enough, his first feud was with The Rock.

The Rock was delivering a promo in the Chicago Raw on August 9 with his countdown clock, and as the clock struck zero, music of “Break the Walls” echoed across the arena as Jericho made his WWE debut. The crowd went nuts for him as he introduced everyone to Raw is Jericho, a famous moniker that he would keep for the rest of his career. And immediately, he got into a verbal feud with The Rock that saw some of the best promos in the WWF back then, considering the prowess of these two men on the mic. While he did have many great moments after that, his best memory would most likely be that of his debut, and probably, the best debut any WWE superstar ever had.

The Beast returns in 2012

Unlike The Rock, Brock Lesnar was never the greatest babyface in the WWE. He had a dominating personality as a heel and was one of the strongest men around for a long time. However, his departure from the WWE coincided with the subsequent rise of John Cena, Batista and wasn’t felt so badly for a long time. And only in 2011, The Rock had returned to build up for his match with John Cena at WrestleMania XXVIII in Miami.

However, the following night on Raw, when Cena was out to congratulate The Rock on his victory, he received the ‘Beast’ instead. Few people even had a clue that he was going to return and the crowd went insane with their reaction to it. It had been a long time, and in all these days, he had become a UFC Heavyweight Champion and headlined their PPVs with over a million buys. He was a global phenomenon and seeing him return to the WWE felt really good. The reaction, however, was quite over the top as Brock went on to F5 John Cena and end the show standing amidst the ring.

Hulk Hogan v The Rock at WrestleMania X8

Dubbed “Icon v Icon”, this match was truly a battle of the generations as a heel Hulk Hogan went up against The Rock in front of a pumped up Toronto crowd. Despite a babyface Rock going into the match, Hogan got the cheers as the Toronto crowd went berserk seeing their hero of the past return to pose in front of them early into the match. And what followed was an exemplary match that brought out the true magic of professional wrestling.

The Rock didn’t play along with the script and instead chose to go with the pulse of the crowd. He played to the tune of a babyface Hogan and started getting the despicable reactions for himself. While this was a very good move by The Rock, the best part of the match was the fact it had a sustained crowd reaction from 68,000 fans throughout the match. It was an old-school wrestling match with Hulk Hogan getting all the cheers irrespective of the opponent owing to his extreme proficiency in crowd manipulation and showed the world that The Hulkster still had it left in him.