10 WWE Stars Loved For The Wrong Match
3. The Rock
Loved for: The Rock Vs. Steve Austin, WrestleMania X-Seven.
Rock Vs. Austin II was a bloody, epic and heated battle so influential that, to this day, it is almost mandated that every marquee match in 2018 must feature within it multiple finisher kick-outs - even though none of those wrestlers even approach the orbit of those two megastars. Popularising also the finisher theft trope that serves Kenny Omega so well to this day, it cemented Rock's legacy as a Mount Rushmore-level act - but his legacy elsewhere is something that stands alone.
Deserves as much, if not more credit for: The Rock Vs. Brock Lesnar, SummerSlam 2002.
Easily the most selfless main event act in wrestling history, the great irony behind The Rock is that the man was so arrogant onscreen he would only refer to himself in the third person - and yet, behind the scenes, raised in the industry, he was so professional and downright cool that he gave back to it without a thought. The alternative history of pro wrestling is littered with would-be headliners, stigmatised as failures in the role at the crucial debutante ball stage: Rob Van Dam, Booker T, and several more not exclusive to Triple H. Steve Austin and the Undertaker were altogether more reluctant, but Rock put over Brock Lesnar huge in New York, legitimising the man who would in turn legitimise the company itself a decade later.
Were more stars as selfless as The Rock, we may not have entered the torturous part-timer era.