The Rock Returns On Raw - February 15, 2011

Welcome to the "if you missed the last segment of Raw last night.....wow, did you ever mess up" edition of The Wrestling List.

The Rock. Yep, The Rock. That was how we finished Raw last night with over 20 minutes of The Rock in a WWE ring live on Raw. WWE announced that The Rock will be the guest host for WrestleMania XXVII. The lights went out before the final segment and a new version of Rock's music hit and the roof was blown off of the building in Anaheim. The fans went nuts. The roar got even louder when Rock made his way down the ramp. What took place after that was Rock going through the usual stuff that we all know, thanking the fans, shutting down Michael Cole and the GM gimmick, and took some shots at John Cena. As I watched this segment and just even watched The Rock walking to the ring, I just realized how this guy is on a completely different level than the ones on the rest of the show. I just hope that the locker room was backstage watching and studying this guy. He is able to take that crowd on a ride that few others can. It was a lot of great comedy, intensity, and fun all wound into one. The stuff with Michael Cole was tremendous. When that GM sound went off, I knew this was going to be fun. Fun moment and the crowd loved seeing Cole get shut down. The other moment was the talk of John Cena. Rock talked about how he had met Cena and that Cena seemed like a nice guy but then heard all of the things that Cena had been saying about him. This is playing off of the comments that Cena has made about Rock in recent years. Nothing really bad but just kind of questioning his leaving WWE and things such as that. No one has ever really figured out if that is Cena saying that stuff or if Vince had encouraged it to maybe try and bait Rock to come back for a showdown with Cena. So, they played off of this and Rock was awesome here talking about how the catchphrase had spiraled from himself and Austin down to "you can't see me" and mocking it. He went on to say that of course we can see him because of his bright colored shirts that he wears and how he looks like a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. What was funny was how quickly the Rock got the crowd to turn on Cena. Cena usually just gets kind of the split crowd reaction but Rock just mentioning Cena's name got the crowd to turn on Cena. All I could think was wow. Rock said that he would be seeing Cena at WrestleMania. Raw went twenty minutes over not going off the air until after 10:25. Great, great segment.

Several stars took to Twitter to express their excitement over Rock's return. Jim Ross tweeted "Dwayne Johnson's classic 'Rock' promo 2nite on Raw was the best thing on Raw in recent memory. Young wrestlers hopefully paid attention." Stone Cold Steve Austin talked of how great of a promo it was "from an electrifying cat". Chris Jericho tweeted: "Congratulations to one of my favorite opponents and greatest rivals on returning to the WWE. The Rock is the BEST promo man of all time." John Cena responded to Rock's comments saying "CeNation. Rock was in rare form tonight. It was great to see him enjoying himself out there. Even if it was at my expens. I've been Called alot worse. Just glad to see him back in action".

WWE has gotten all sorts of publicity over the news of Rock being the host of WrestleMania. The media has picked up the story which WWE was hoping for. Twitter was going crazy last night over Raw. Rock also launched his Twitter account yesterday and posted two minutes before going out live that he was the host of WrestleMania. This has already sold some WrestleMania buys. I have no doubt about that. There will be people that buy this show By the way, I loved the new t-shirt that Rock was wearing. Really funny. "I Bring It" is the new slogan on the shirt and it is already selling on WWE.com.

As far as the rest of Raw, I enjoyed the show. It was the final build to the Elimination Chamber PPV. Punk and Cena had a solid match. I liked the finish with the chair being the distraction to let Punk use the wrench to take out Cena for the win. Cool finish. Good back and forth with Edge and Del Rio. l enjoyed the divas lumberjill match with Eve and Natalya. Daniel Bryan and Miz had another fun match. I liked the intensity of Morrison looking to get revenge on Nexus. Those were my highlights of the show.

Jerry Lawler was not at Raw due to the passing of his mother. Keep him and his family in your prayers as he goes through this terrible loss.

Chris Jericho's new book has now been released. Do yourself a favor and get it.

Interesting DVD and Blu-ray coming up that I am looking forward to picking up. WWE's True Story of WrestleMania. This is a documentary looking at the history of WrestleMania including new interviews. The trailer has a teary eyed Vince McMahon talking about the event's history. It looks really good. Release date is next month.

WWE announced last week that WrestleMania XXVIII will be taking place from Miami, Florida in 2012. Based on what Jim Ross said, the building it is being held in has no roof so it will be at an outdoor event.

That is it for tonight. Wishing you all a great week!! Take care and God bless!!