10 Ways WWE Must Revert To Old Habits To Pop A Rating
1. The Great One
One of the most (if not the most) highest paid actor in Hollywood, a newly-minted television star and a social media phenomenon, there doesn't seem to be an area of the public Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson hasn't conquered since moving away from a full-time wrestling career in 2002.
And yet, his reach within the industry remains almost as wide. A lynchpin of the Attitude Era, The Rock came to be the face of wrestling's acceptable mainstream even more so than Stone Cold Steve Austin by the time 'The Rattlesnake' went under the knife in late-1999.
His exit from the industry was expedited by an outstanding performance on TV institution Saturday Night Live, with his hosting duties affording The Big Show, Triple H, Mick Foley and Vince McMahon himself the opportunity to get themselves in front of an audience even more enormous than the following Monday Night Raw was then routinely securing.
Rock proved his value at the box office with three consecutive advertised WrestleMania appearances drawing over one million buys, with his 2012 headline encounter against John Cena recording the highest buyrate in company history.
A full time return to action by the 'Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment' would be the single biggest wrestling news story this generation. WWE may need to heap millions of those Network dollars on his doorstep, but the 'The Great One' bedding into today's main roster would create countless new feuds, and even more viewers.