It seems to me looking back that, though The Rock was unquestionably hilarious and extremely charismatic, one of his weaker areas was in terms of cutting a straight, deadly serious promo. I mean the kind of serious promo where you sat forward on your chair because you felt that a real issue was taking place in the ring. He always seemed to be making tongue in cheek comments no matter who he was faced with, whether it was The Undertaker or Billy Gunn, Ric Flair or the Hurricane and I feel his promo style undercut the effectiveness of his feuds. Obviously he was still effective in terms of ticket sales and ppv buys, but I mean artistically, I think he failed to get you absolutely invested on a serious level, to the extent that some of the other great promo men in wrestling have been able to do. At the end of a Rock promo I was usually left chuckling in that "Man, Rock sure is funny", kind of way, rather than the "Holy sh*t, its on!", kind of way. Part of his problem may have been the structure of his gimmick. Even when he did his "serious" wide-eyed face, he never made you forget that he was playing a role. His whole constant third person thing almost made it seem like he was trying to be some kind of ironic parody, and certainly he never came across like a real person. Mick Foley showed him up on Raw in 1999 to an almost shocking extent when he thought Rock had thrown his book in the trash, the Rock tilted his head at Mankind and was about to go off on one, but Foley shouted him down furiously, and spoke in a serious manner about sacrifices and ended by telling Rock to "Grow up". The Rock was left speechless because if he had started spewing something like "Know your role", or "Stick it up your candy-ass", he would have looked ridiculous after Foley's serious comments.
I am struggling to even think of some absolutely serious Rock promo where he wasn't talking about turning it sideways or rudy-poos or mickey mouse tattoos or jabroni beating and pie -eating, and all I can think of are a couple of pre-records in the buildup to Brock at Summerslam '02 and the sitdown with Steve Austin and Jim Ross before Wrestlemania 17. But even those weren't the kind of money promo I mean.
This is just one of the areas that I felt Stone Cold far surpassed the Great One. Austin had an ability to make you think he legitimately believed what he was saying and made you forget it was an entertainment show. It was easy to totally believe in Austin as a real person. There was no winking at the audience or breaking of the tone with Austin when he was really at his peak between '97 and '99 and as a result he got you really psyched for his matches in a way that I don't think the Rock delivered. Anyone agree/disagree or who are some of your favourite "serious promo" men?
I am struggling to even think of some absolutely serious Rock promo where he wasn't talking about turning it sideways or rudy-poos or mickey mouse tattoos or jabroni beating and pie -eating, and all I can think of are a couple of pre-records in the buildup to Brock at Summerslam '02 and the sitdown with Steve Austin and Jim Ross before Wrestlemania 17. But even those weren't the kind of money promo I mean.
This is just one of the areas that I felt Stone Cold far surpassed the Great One. Austin had an ability to make you think he legitimately believed what he was saying and made you forget it was an entertainment show. It was easy to totally believe in Austin as a real person. There was no winking at the audience or breaking of the tone with Austin when he was really at his peak between '97 and '99 and as a result he got you really psyched for his matches in a way that I don't think the Rock delivered. Anyone agree/disagree or who are some of your favourite "serious promo" men?
