How useful will he be, anyway?
I actually think his return would be a great way to end the Invasion. Not only could he challenge Booker T and make mince meat out of him, but then he could take on Kurt Angle should he win the WWF title from Austin at “Summerslam.” This could fizzle out the Invasion by showing that from the inside, the interest in feuding with WCW and ECW is dwindling.
But that’s far from likely. Instead, it looks like they’ll just drag this along until enough dream matches have been fulfilled and/or WCW finally gets a network contract settled.
Also more likely is that The Rock will try to act just as he did before he left – chock full of old, new and modified catch phrases to wear out (and on T-shirts.) But there has been way too many changes since his absence for the old Rock to be effective. First, there’s no Triple H. And that gaping hole is hard to ignore. Second, Vince is actually rooting for him. McMahon is hard to enough to swallow as the reluctant face, but to have him back The Rock again may make it even harder. Third, Stone Cold is making a pussy of his heel-ship and totally putting a bad taste in everyone’s mouth toward the Rattlesnake (it’s also going to taint any future transition back to face). Fourth, Kurt Angle is making his way gradually to frontlines. His type of all-Amerinan, milk-drinking, sparsely-swearing, red-white-and-blue-wearing face hasn’t been tried since the Lex Lugar/Yokozuna feud in the mid-90s. And the last time it was successful was with (dare I speak his name) Hulk Hogan.
It’s a very different kind of hero, and it won’t mix well with The Rock. Only one of two things will happen: Either out Olympic hero will take a backseat to the Brahma Bull, or (more likely) they’ll make a horrible duo as lead faces and people will start making more grimaces than the wrestlers who ate Debra’s cookies.
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