Wrestlemania 39 is scheduled to be one of the biggest wrestling events in recent memory. A seemingly surefire way of increasing the appeal of the show is to bring back some of the old stars. At one point The Rock vs Brock Lesnar was planned but failed to materialize owing to unfortunate circumstances.
How did the idea materialize?
This topic was brought forth by a fan question to Dave Meltzer, “Was there ever a discussion of doing Rock-Cena 3 or it was it always just meant to be the 2 matches at back to back WM.?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXfurkD0mns
The response was, “Not really. Rock was planned for Lesnar the next year but after his injuries the movie studios did not want him wrestling again.”
That would mean we may not really witness the Rock again entering the stage at WWE, but the speculation did hold fans at the edge of their seats for a while.
What does the cancellation of The Rock vs Brock Lesnar tell us about wrestling in general?
We are well aware that mainstream wrestling is a fake sport but that doesn’t mean there is no lasting damage to the body. Depending on how a match goes, MMA fighters and boxers can protect themselves to varying degrees. Fighters like Islam Makhachev have absorbed a significantly less number of strikes compared to most of his peers.
But in wrestling, the situation is a bit different. The athletes pretty much have to do everything the script orders to keep things interesting. The weight class is not something that is very well maintained if there is a wow factor involved. You can probably guess the horrors that follow.
When a smaller wrestler picks up his larger counterpart, life-threatening risks are involved. When someone takes a dive or crashes into a solid surface, no matter how padded the objects may be, things can get worse. Although the working conditions are not as bad as they used to be, for regular performers, the risk isn’t really worth the reward.
The Rock has established himself as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood at this point. There doesn’t seem to be any logical reason to perform the heavy-impact WWE actions all over again.
This is why we may not see ‘Flex Kavana’ back in action to any significant degree ever again.
Guess it all depends on if The Rock loves the business as much as he’s always said he did…. John Cena is arguably just as big in Hollywood as Rock is. They can’t keep him away, at least in some capacity.