Last week, The Rock dropped a blistering 21 minute video on social media calling out Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins for torpedoing his proposed match with Roman Reigns at WrestleMania. It perfectly addressed most of the logic gaps fans had been complaining about and ripped apart Seth and Cody for not realizing he was the reason WWE signed its massive deal with Netflix and is selling out arenas. It was almost universally agreed to be one of the better promos of Rocky’s entire career, and he followed it up with a fantastic forty minute segment with his cousin Roman Reigns on SmackDown in which they challenged Cody and Seth to a tag match at ‘Mania. Last night, it was time for the babyfaces to fire back, and while Rhodes was decent enough in his portion, Rollins’ work is being talked about for all the wrong reasons. It was a big time yikes.
Now, before I get into this, I want to make it clear that I am normally a Seth Rollins apologist. He’s turned The World Heavyweight Championship into a real prize over the last year, and unlike Roman Reigns who has been gone more often than not, he’s shown up almost every week, even when he’s been injured. He’s one of the best in-ring workers in the world, and over the last few months, he’s mostly found his groove as a mix between the walking clown emoji, as The Rock calls him, and a fighting champion who is serious enough to be a main event guy. As such, I’ve been happy to see him inserted into The Rock, Roman and Cody’s story, and I went into last night eager to hear him fire back at Dwayne Johnson.
After all, there were so many places he could go. He could talk about how The Rock is nothing more than a catchphrase machine. He could talk about how The Rock is a nostalgia act from the past and he’s the present. He could talk about how even in his prime, The Rock couldn’t hang with him in the ring. He could talk about how The Rock might think he’s better for business, but they were sold out in San Antonio without him. He could talk about how he’s probably back because his movie career isn’t going super well. There were so many options.
But instead of taking any of those that would have helped him push his story forward, he instead told The Rock he hasn’t been cool in 20 years and got the crowd to chant “Diarrhea Dwayne.” That’s right. He called The Rock “Diarrhea Dwayne” and talked about how he runs his mouth a lot, but what comes out is baby poop. He even circled back and referenced it again later in this promo. The lines went over well enough with the live crowd, but many people watching at home were left thinking… that’s it? That’s the response? You can watch it below...
We are on the road to what could be one of the most talked about WrestleManias of all-time. In twenty years, we almost certainly will look back at this time right now as among the most famous stretches of Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins’ entire careers. Ratings are up. Almost every WWE PPV is breaking viewership records. The Rock is back and doing his first real storyline in over a decade. Fans are packing buildings and chanting We Want Cody. Roman and The Rock are giving us must-see promos every week that make the story more compelling… and Seth Rollins is giving us stupid nicknames like “Diarrhea Dwayne” and generic promos that could apply to anyone on the roster.
It’s not just me. This isn’t one of those situations where I’m disappointed and hunting for tweets to make me feel seen. Many of the most popular wrestling accounts on Twitter responded to the promo with their own version of WTF. People are screenshotting Cody Rhodes’ underwhelmed face when Rollins delivered his “Diarrhea Dwayne” line, and I’ve seen numerous jokes from people saying the entire promo felt like it was written by PG-era Vince McMahon. There are certainly some who found it amusing, but in general, the reaction has not been good.
In the grand scheme of things, one promo doesn’t really matter. Seth Rollins is a future Hall of Famer, and I’ll always put respect on his name. But this Cody And Seth Vs The Bloodline story has all the potential to be one of the best storylines in WWE history. It’s all right there. For that to happen, however, we need more from Seth and to be honest, we need more from Cody. Cody was perfectly fine last night, but he was outclassed by The Rock and Roman and Seth was left looking like he doesn’t even belong in the main event. To truly reach its potential, we need Seth and Cody to drop a promo that’s as good as what The Bloodline is cooking, and last night was lowest common denominator leftovers.
