10 WWE Matches That Defined Each Year Of The 2010s

John Cena vs The Rock from WrestleMania XXVIII threw out all the rules.

Firstly, it was announced a year in advance, which had never been done before. It would also be the first scheduled in-ring appearance for The Rock since 2004, a huge return for fans who thought that Dwayne had been lost to Hollywood forever.

Up until this point, WWE had been fairly committed to building new stars, or at the very least working with the stars they had. Sure, John Cena, Randy Orton, and Triple H had a vice grip on the main event scene and stars like Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker were always in featured matches, but at least these were all full-time WWE employees.

The Rock's return to WWE marked the beginning of the "part-time" era. Rock's comeback led to a series of sporadic appearances for WWE, including a rematch with Cena at the following year's WrestleMania in which Johnson was the WWE Champion.

This opened the doors for guys like Brock Lesnar (who returned to WWE the night after this match) to dominate WWE as a part-time performer and may have indirectly been responsible for the lack of new stars created by WWE ever since.