Road to WrestleMania – The Rock

WrestleMania 29 has apparently generated 11 million in revenues already! This WrestleMania is rumoured to be the biggest grossing PPV in the history of the business, and at least some of the credit should be given to the person holding the WWE title going into WrestleMania. For The Rock, it has been a fairy tale journey ever since he returned to the WWE a couple of years ago. From a special guest at WrestleMania to the main event of two consecutive WrestleManias, Rock has lived the dream, something only very few can do.

At WrestleMania 28, The Rock went one on one against the face of the WWE, John Cena, in what was described as a ‘Once in a Lifetime’ match. During the match, The Rock proved once again why he was the People’s champion, as he stood toe to toe with Cena throughout the match, and in the end, emerged victorious as the crowd cheered their hero. The Rock proved that in the battle of generations, he was better than John Cena, and on that night, the People’s champion had defeated the leader of CeNation.

For years now, Cena and The Rock had a lot of differences on-screen, and finally The Rock had put Cena in place. After his ‘Once in a Lifetime’ match against Cena, Rock had taken time off from the wrestling business, and when he was away, he kept an eye on the product, waiting to make a big announcement during the 1000^th episode of Monday Night RAW. And during the episode, Rock had informed Punk, Daniel Bryan and John Cena, that he would challenge the WWE champion, no matter who it is, at the 2013 Royal Rumble. By the end of the night, Rock tried to save Cena from a beat down by the Big Show, only to be attacked by CM Punk.

After the 1000^th episode of RAW, Rock went back to Hollywood to work on his projects. He came out with two movies, with the latest being G. I. Joe Retaliation, while waiting patiently for January. And when the time came, he made his presence felt on RAW and SmackDown, which he returned to after 10 long years! Rock had made his intentions clear to CM Punk that he was coming out for the WWE title. Punk, who was in the middle of a record run as the champion, made it clear that he had no intentions of losing the WWE title. At the Royal Rumble, Punk initially won the WWE title, thanks to interference by The Shield, but upon restarting the match, Rock defeated CM Punk to end his 434 day run to become the new WWE Champion!

CM Punk claimed he was screwed out of the title, and chose to have his rematch during the next month’s Elimination Chamber PPV. On that night, Rock once again defeated CM Punk to retain the title, thus going into WrestleMania 29 as the WWE Champion! At the Royal Rumble, Cena won the Rumble match to win the rights to face the WWE Champion at WrestleMania. This set up their second confrontation in 2 years, but only this time, the stakes will be higher, as Cena will look to win back the WWE Title. But The Rock would want to hold the WWE title longer to prove to the fans that he isn’t a transitional champion.

This year’s WrestleMania has been built as ‘Greatness versus Redemption’, with the Rock looking to cement himself as the true people’s champion, while John Cena will be looking to avenge his last year’s WrestleMania loss to The Rock, by beating him for the WWE title. It will be interesting to see how the night ends as both Cena and Rock have their reputation at stake, as the winner will walk away the true ‘Champion’.