Ring Work
Now everyone has had their opinion about the Rock's ring work between 2011-13. Many in the IWC have complained that he wasn't equipped to match it with the full time performers- particularly during the 2013 Road to Mania. Once again, I don't think this entirely fair. The match with CM Punk at the Royal Rumble was in my opinion fairly good (except for a totally convoluted ending) but critics derided the Rock for being gassed during the match. The WWE's reaction to this was to make their rematch at the Elimination Chamber a sort of slower paced match based more around storytellng. This match became really dull, really fast, partly because the story was just predictable and partly because it didn't make either superstar look that great. What was worse, though, was it just emphasised the idea that the WWE was not confident that the Rock could go another 20+ mins with Punk in a big match. Having said that, I do have a bone to pick with the Wrestlemania 29 match. I always thought that the rematch may have needed a stipulation to make it more interesting the second time around, and unfortunately both Cena and Rock could not drive and compel the crowd to feel invested in the match- resorting to a bunch of finishers at the end of the match.