6 Ups & 10 Downs From WWE Raw (6 Jan - Results & Review)

5. Final Boss No More?

When The Rock announced his return to Raw on Sunday, it sparked immediate speculation about his role and whether he would drop a hint about his involvement – if any – at WrestleMania 41.

Of all the fantasy booking fans engaged in, there’s about a 0.2% chance someone predicted that he would simply shill the Raw on Netflix debut, echoing much of what Triple H had said just moments earlier.

Where was the Final Boss, the greatest heel in WWE last year? There wasn’t even a hint of the character of The Rock. He might as well have introduced himself as Dwayne Johnson, member of the board of directors for TKO, here to give an official update on the status of WWE’s new venture and talk about his family.

Sure, Rock coming out to present Roman Reigns with the ula fala after Tribal Combat was a nice moment, but once again it was devoid of any character development. And don’t hide behind “Rock isn’t available for WrestleMania, so he didn’t play an angle.” He always has played an angle. Even just treading water with the Final Boss character to leave fans guessing would have been fine.

This was just a complete out-of-character appearance on a show full of characters. Steve Carrell walking out on The Office rather than Michael Scott.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.