PHILADELPHIA He looked out at the Arizona crowd who had paid to get a glimpse of the fight of the most powerful heavyweight on the planet, measured both by his box office weight and his ink-stained muscles. Then The Rock let the abuse fly. And as is often the case today, it is not enough to attack your opponents. He also had to insult people.
The Rock did some research and here's what he found out. It's the truth. It is a fact. The number one city in America for cocaine and methamphetamine use is Phoenix, Arizona, The Rock told a roaring crowd that seemed to revel in the insults. Only then did he hit his WrestleMania opponents.
Were The Rocks' claims true? Or just an engine of vigorous trash talk? More importantly: Does anyone really care, as long as the entertainment value is turned up to 11 and WWE attracts more fans to watch and shell out money for its flagship show, WrestleMania , which will take place in Philadelphia this weekend?
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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson makes his entrance at Wrestlemania XXXI in 2015 in Santa Clara, California.
AP file photo
In the murky lines that intertwine sports, entertainment and, of course, politics, the ethics of evil has never been better. Say what you want. Do you want. The public eats it up. And for decades, somehow, the gaudy world of professional wrestling remained right in the middle of it all.
Outside the ring, Superman's spandex has been swapped for Clark Kent glasses and a leather jacket, Dwayne Johnson is shaping his good guy image to showcase his films, his tequila brand, his men's grooming line, his business interests in the football league where the bottom line doesn't matter. There's no need to call the competition a bunch of candy assholes. But under the house lights every week on live television, Johnson knows the storylines are sold on his Hollywood persona.
I feel like everyone wants to be the good guy, the good girl. “Everyone wants to be loved and acclaimed and seen as a hero, which is great and natural,” he says. But, I have felt over the course of my career, the rare thing is that when you have the opportunity to grab it by the throat, you don't. let it go. And that's the opportunity to be a great villain.
Wrestling fans, under a Wrestlemania sign, watch a 2023 episode of WWE Monday Night RAW in Boston.
AP file photo
Cultural attraction
The Rock is expected to headline one of two nights of the annual WrestleMania event this weekend in Philadelphia, where more than 70,000 fans are expected to fill the NFL stadium that is home to the Eagles each night.
The banners of your favorite wrestlers, or those you love to hate, have choked the poles of city streets. Philly was overrun with wrestling conventions, autograph signings, independent wrestling shows, podcast tapings, a 2K24 gaming tournament, and all the other trappings that transformed the industry into a dominant cultural phenomenon.
From the start, WrestleMania was born to be different.
Mr. T and Muhammad Ali helped pack Madison Square Garden in 1985, and The Showcase of the Immortals quickly transformed a night of wrestling usually reserved for smoke-filled arenas into a Super Bowl of entertainment. As WrestleMania approaches its 40th anniversary, it's never been bigger, even with the brainchild of Vince McMahon, an outcast and ousted from the company following a sexual abuse trial.
Yes, McMahon and Donald Trump even faced off at WrestleMania in 2007 in a Battle of the Billionaires match.
Donald Trump, to a certain extent, represents a lot of Americana, McMahon said in 2007. He's larger than life, which is really what WWE is about.
Maybe wrestling truly represents who we are as a nation. But even if you continue to wrinkle your nose like you've taken a whiff of sour milk at the very idea that everyone would like this flavor of wrestling, chances are you've still heard of The Rock and by Hulk Hogan. Andre the Giant and John Cena. You slipped on a Slim Jim because Randy Savage ordered you to, or you let out a Woooo! at a hockey game like Ric Flair. Dave Bautista won a WrestleMania championship before guarding the Galaxy.
Look at the way it was marketed in the '80s, when Vince McMahon really changed the whole industry forever, said author Brad Balukjian, whose new book is about the WrestleMania stars of the 1980s. the figurines, the cartoon, the sheets and the lunch boxes. He turned these guys into Batmans and the 80s Marvel Cinematic Universe, sort of.
WWF heavyweight champion Hulk Hogan, left, and MT appear at a 1985 press conference at Madison Square Garden in New York.
AP file photo
Counterfeit accepted
Fans have long been involved in the scam and embraced it. It's a mutual agreement made for even paying customers to play their own part in the four-sided ring spectacle. So they applaud. They boo. And despite all evidence to the contrary, they openly accept that every move is as legitimate a sporting action as anything that happens in a weekday football game.
Wrestling pretended for so long to be thriving. Comedian Andy Kaufman gasped when he was slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler on Late Night with David Letterman. But the curtain has long been drawn. On Wednesday, Johnson and WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns appeared on the Tonight Show without any manufactured theatrics in their final hype job before WrestleMania.
Former WWE star Dave Schultz slapped a 20/20 reporter in the 1980s for calling wrestling fake. Now, ESPN, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports have dedicated pages that report on both the storylines and behind-the-scenes news, where the real drama is more likely to be found. Wrestling news is treated as seriously as any other sport.
But is this the case? A sport, of course.
Discuss the definition as much as you like. Fighting a precursor to reality TV and all Real Housewives won't get you anywhere. And his biggest fans are often the athletes who want to emulate the giant stars.
This week, Joel Embiid was set to reveal that he suffered from depression during an injury that cost him two months of his NBA career. But before the Philadelphia 76ers big man unloaded his burden, he donned a WWE t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan of the wrestling company's grossest faction, DeGeneration X: Suck It.
For professional wrestling, momentum is within reach. WWE's weekly TV show Raw will move to Netflix next year in a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion. That's a significant amount of money that even “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase would envy.
So go ahead. Making fun of wrestling. Or let go, turn a blind eye to the subterfuge, and embrace Hulkamania and the frenzy that followed as a staple of the global sporting landscape. Because he's not leaving the building anytime soon.
Consider retired Phillies star and team broadcaster John Kruk. You'd think baseball's highlight every year would be a must-see for him. But if pro wrestling comes to town, as he recently told wrestler Kofi Kingston on TV, other priorities take precedence.
If it was a World Series game, if the Phillies weren't in and wrestling was active,” Kruk said, “I'm watching wrestling.
