So, about that WrestleMania Kickoff. Everyone’s head still spinning?
The special event that WWE staged from inside the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, conveniently smack dab in the middle of Super Bowl hype this week, was a perfect mixture of chaos, story, ego, star power, confusion, public display of pandemonium, and at the same time a gigantic pivot for a company that doesn’t make many.
Generally, all of that is a strong formula for success in professional wrestling. It’s just not one WWE is known for using anymore. WWE is safe. Habitually, they’d rather count the billions of dollars is revenue coming in the door than rock the boat with risky angles with potentially high upside.
Who can blame them, really? They’ve earned their billions with a formula that works and that is clamored for by fans on a weekly basis across five hours of weekly television programming and countless other content time sucks on social media and YouTube. What WWE does works, which is why it was jarring to see the company unleash such a pivot from their comfort zone with the world watching, their biggest stars in focus, one of the biggest global Hollywood stars onstage, and the biggest event of the year in bright lights.
Creative misstep gave WWE a lot to work with
WWE had a lot to work with going into the kickoff event that was originally billed as a press conference. Throughout the week, WWE fans took to social media with pitchforks and torches to fight the powers at be over a presumed match that was booked last week on Smackdown. The Rock vs. Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40. A dream match years in the making until it was actually made.
The match wasn’t the problem WWE had when the dust settled on the announcement. The problem was presumed WrestleMania main-eventer, Cody Rhodes, stepping aside and handing away his title opportunity against Reigns to The Rock without any good reason except, “The Rock said he had to.” Kidding, of course, but essentially that’s what happened. Rock wanted the Roman Reigns match at WrestleMania and misjudged how the WWE fans might see that move after a year of watching Cody scratch and claw to return to the top spot and really finish his story against Reigns.
The backlash to Rock vs. Reigns was stunning. After all, this isn’t a Goldberg return we’re talking about. This is The Rock. A WWE legend, fan favorite, and one of the biggest stars the wrestling industry has ever seen. Nothing to sneeze at if you’re the fans and nothing for WWE to worry about about moving to, right? Wrong. As soon as the match was announced, the video of The Rock getting handed the shot from Cody instantly became the most disliked video on YouTube in WWE history and a new trending hashtag —WeWantCody — stuck worldwide for nearly 48 hours. It was apparent that WWE had a problem.
Push, push, push, and push
Historically, WWE doesn’t care too much about social media pushback they get. Or any pushback for that matter. It takes a lot for the company to change course and typically the response they have for disgruntled members of the audience is to push right on through it to get to where they want to go anyway. The pushes of John Cena, Roman Reigns, and the lack of significant pushes for CM Punk, Dean Ambrose, and others throughout the years exemplify that strategy.
So, when this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw came and went without grandiose changes to WrestleMania matches, it felt like Rock vs. Roman would headline the big show as was announced on Friday and the head down, “let’s get through this” strategy of WWE booking was on tap. Things felt different on Monday, though.
Instead of using production wizardry to retell the story from Smackdown concerning The Rock, Rhodes, and Reigns in a way that fit the exact narrative they wanted, WWE leaned into the madness of the weekend on social media. The announce team discussed on-air just how wild of a weekend Cody had and even altered the story into a deeper state of confusion by outright not acknowledging that Cody had given up his title shot just days earlier. Instead, they spun a narrative on how Cody’s weekend had him undecided on what he’d do for WrestleMania.
That’s the backstory to the WrestleMania Kickoff event and it’s an important one as it teased change for WWE. Monday left the door open for a pivot and hope on the table for many WWE fans.
It’s all about control
The idea at the center of this WrestleMania hurricane of change is control. WWE likes to have it. As a company, they want to dictate who gets what reaction, who does big business, and where the company goes from a storyline perspective. It’s rare to see the company give up that control and a big reason for that is the now disgraced former WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon. Anybody who knows Vince McMahon will tell you that he wanted things his way. Almost always. And in the times he didn’t get his way, he was dragged another way kicking and screaming.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the new head honcho in WWE creative, doesn’t appear to care much at all about that kind of control. Possibly, he thinks he has it by ultimately giving it up, but either way, the strategy of total control was cast aside once Raw turned out the way it did on Monday night. Levesque left the story in the hands of disgruntled fans. He caved and the table was set for the WrestleMania Kickoff on Thursday night.
WWE hasn’t done a lot of the press conference hype events outside of their usual television shows, so the expectation going in was that the event would be tightly produced, meticulously planned, and executed without improvisation. As soon as the lights went up and Michael Cole started the broadcast alongside Pat McAfee, Big E, and CM Punk, a tone of chaos hummed in the air.
The announce team bantered back and forth casually and inconsistently in a way that screamed either “we don’t have a script” or “to hell with the script we have.” Punk and Big E pulled the curtain back on current and past WWE booking mishaps as Cole looked on, fanning the flames with follow-up questions. McAfee, a former NFL punter turned annoying media king, shot comments off from the hip all event long, and Punk even threatened The Rock thanks to a comment where he said he’d slap Rock across the face if he pulled on him what he pulled on Cody during the event. The irony of the remark wasn’t the fact that he said it, but the fact that he said it on the house mic with Rock on the stage staring a sniper-style laser through the back of Punk’s head. That type of chaos isn’t usually in the DNA of the WWE, so it either was a total breakdown of a job, or a conscious pivot to present their product another way.
The onstage happenings at the WrestleMania Kickoff with The Rock, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes, and Seth Rollins were equally chaotic, bizarre, and entertaining. Confusing too. Rollins and Reigns started things off with a promo that felt like it could occupy time on a Smackdown run sheet. The intensity and lack of control began when Rock hit the stage to a mixed reaction at best. The Rock looked unsure of himself to start, but then found his rhythm as the boos got louder and louder each time he progressed his typical Rock schtick. Cody came out and confronted both Roman and Rock, which added the final glorious layer of madness to the segment.
Tension in the air
Tension was everywhere. Triple H stood in the background looking uncomfortable with the lack of control he had, but undoubtedly helped curate. The egos of all four top WWE stars collided for top position and the audience simmered with all sorts of chants and a seemingly fluid allegiance to whoever stung worse with one-liners on the microphone.
When the smoke cleared and the tension quieted, Roman Reigns vs. The Rock was a distant memory. The company heard the disgruntled and pivoted back to Reigns vs. Cody, only with The Rock now firmly on the side of his family and Reigns thanks to a Cody remark that set him off. It’s a far cry from where things were just a week earlier, but the right move given the circumstances and everything on the line.
WWE pivoted on their story and on the strategy to get to the new one all at the same time. A pivot in story, but also in strategy. Was this a one time thing? Quite possibly. A perfect storm of circumstances where WWE needed pandemonium and craziness to fix their own mistake? Likely. They didn’t have many options. Maybe this is Levesque’s and TKO Group’s way to make WWE feel fresh with a UFC tint to it and at a time where it behooves them to distinguish eras due to the disgusting scandal and allegations made against former WWE boss, Vince McMahon?
All of that played a role in what happened this week. I liked it, though. It was fun. It was dramatic. It was entertaining. Not all of it made sense and not all of it connected together, but when you stipulate to the fact that what they did existed to repair a key story, there were going to be holes. The holes weren’t attempted to be filled in by goofy stories and backwards psychology, though. These holes were called out and built around.
Will this strategy work long term? Who knows, but the lack of control on display was new. It was fresh. It created an environment where it felt like anything could come out of the mouths of the massive egos at play. It built a type of intrigue that hasn’t been seen in WWE in a long, long time.
Hopefully there is more of this on the horizon. They can’t break out crazy Kickoff events like this one for every show, but WWE can take the elements that worked well and attempt to implement them more regularly into their weekly programming. They can also be better at this exact event next time around. The announcers being buttoned up and knowing the final narrative more fluently will help with the confusion that set in amongst fans regarding WrestleMania in the minutes after the show went off the air.
A new era?
Yes, WWE butchered things initially. Cody Rhodes being big-footed and stepped over by The Rock to take on Reigns was the move of a previous WWE creative regime. To begin the WrestleMania Kickoff event, Levesque talked about the beginning of a new era in WWE.
Maybe this was it.
Subscribe to Brass Ring Media on YouTube. The brand new Brass Ring Media show, Nocturnal Knockout, broke down and analyzed the WrestleMania Kickoff event just hours after it happened. See the full video HERE.