5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE SmackDown (21 Feb - Results & Review)

Downs...

3. The Rock’s Rambling “I Want Your Soul” Promo

Up first: The Rock's appearance.

Look, hopefully WWE has a plan to make this work and everything comes up smelling of roses in the end, but SmackDown's segment felt a little awkward and almost clumsy. Honestly, it still feels a bit sudden within the context of TV that Cody Rhodes and The Rock are great friends now, especially after everything that happened during the build up to WrestleMania 40. Rock saying he wants to make Cody “his” corporate style champion has potential though, but this maybe wasn’t the blistering first chapter of that story arc WWE wanted it to be.

Rock being heavily involved in the final month before ‘Mania could muddy the waters if someone like CM Punk or John Cena is challenging. Being fair, let’s wait and see how it plays out, but it'd be hard to give this segment anything other than a ‘Down’ in isolation. That was a lot of rearranged time dedicated to bare bones.

There are glimmers of hope in Rocky going Mr. McMahon vs. Steve Austin style with Rhodes. He's pretty much asking Cody to become a 'Corporate Champion' without saying those words. There shouldn't be any issues with Cody being dumbfounded and lost for words either. That was the intention of this skit.

It just didn't quite land the way Rock, Hunter, Cody and WWE as a whole would've wanted it to. If this was planned out all along, then everyone really needed to do a better job with The Rock's actual wording here. He meandered a bit too much for this to feel impactful.