Sidgwick Michael - WhatCulture Wrestling Issue 7: The 50 Best Moments Of The WWE Attitude Era

By Simon Gallagher

Back in 2001, when The Rock kicked off his black briefs and appeared in The Mummy Returns (thanks to some of the shoddiest CGI yet seen in Hollywood), nobody in their right mind would have predicted where hed be in the film industry now.

Since retiring from ring duties, the Attitude Era icon has arguably risen to an even higher level as an actor, swapping his top drawing label in WWE with a highest paid Hollywood actor title after a period of solidly bankable movies. Hes big business and the fact that he barely sleeps suggests hes going to be at the top for as long as audiences have some appetite for him.

Looking back over the film careers of other top level WWE stars, The Rock is a man apart. Other than him, successful career cross overs have been extremely limited, with most WWE stars left to share the spoils of the mixed bag that is WWE Studios movies. But that should be about to change soon.

The Face That Runs The Place is about to launch himself into the Hollywood machine with the same enthusiasm and ready-made star power that The Rock did almost two decades ago. And theres a lot to suggest that hes going to rise to a similar level to his forebear, and quickly.

So far, Cena has scored modest successes with a broad range of film appearances, but his best work has come in comedies his supporting roles in Trainwreck and Sister and his cameo in Daddys Home all suggest he has comedy chops that far surpass his rapping ability. And his turn in The Wall added confirmation that hes capable of dramatic roles as well.

He hasnt banked a great deal in box office terms yet, and while hes starred in a couple more WWE Studios films than The Rock, hes arguably got a stronger launch-point than Johnson had when he slung his kit bag over his shoulder and went to make it in Tinsel Town. And looking at the movies hes got coming up confirms that he could be in for a similar rise to the A-list of leads.

Already, Cena has a potentially billion dollar movie appearance lined up thanks to Transformers spin-off Bumblebee, alongside the Daddys Home sequel that expands his role and teen-sex comedy Blockers from Pitch Perfect writer Kay Cannon. So hell have more space to show off his comedy ability, importantly, but hell also be dropped into a blockbuster.

On top of that, hes also got animation Ferdinand coming up at Christmas from the same team behind Ice Age, which puts him immediately into the lucrative family audience bracket that The Rock sought so heavily with films like Journey 2, Race To Witch Mountain and The Tooth Fairy. All of those moves were intelligently chosen to put The Rock into consideration as a family lead, which is where big money comes from.

From there, it was an easy transition to adventure and blockbuster leads, which The Rock kept himself in the frame for with edgier comedies and grown-up material like Pain & Gain. He basically positioned himself as a double-threat face, and its the same model Cena should and probably will aim for.

If the rumours that Cena was under consideration for the lead in Shazam! are anything to go by, hes already creating significant waves in Hollywood, even before his two potentially career-making movies (Bumblebee and Ferdinand) even come out. To have him even considered on the short-list is a big, big deal, and a suggestion that deal-makers behind the scenes of huge movies think hes a viable lead to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with The Rock (who plays the villain).

Looking at his in-ring persona, you can see why that assumption would be made. His apple pie charm and the companys refusal to turn him heel have painted this transcendent image of an all-American superman (which is of course why hed be linked to a movie character so similar). Hes wholesome, but with the physicality and the occasional attitude to suggest a spectrum of bankability similar to The Rocks.

Both men cut striking figures on screen thanks to their physiques, and while Hollywood would never openly acknowledge its continued obsession with physicality, theres something about good-looking, hulking men that makes them catnip at the box office and strong contenders for basically every lucrative blockbuster franchise. They both look like supermen, and in an industry increasingly defined by comic book movies, thats a powerful look.

Its such a powerful look backed up by the kind of distilled star quality that you barely see these days in actors (they prefer to be considered technically impressive over simple allure) that The Rock has risen to the top almost unimpeded by competition. If you were to pick out other actors like him, youd struggle. Maybe Mark Wahlberg hits some of the beats. Vin Diesel probably too. But thats about it, and thats why Cena has success written all over him.

What he doesnt quite have now to compete with The Rock is the self-sustaining social media power Johnson has. Thanks to his ludicrously popular Instagram and Twitter accounts which in themselves bred a YouTube channel The Rock has a perpetual marketing machine, which his starring vehicles can count on for a significant injection of free publicity.

At the minute, Cenas Instagram is a smorgasbord of weirdness, which he uses to post seemingly non-related images without context. If youre looking for a message in there even when he has things to legitimately promote you wont find it. Youd have to suspect that some image consultancy would target that sort of thing immediately before the big movie star push.

But that aside, hes a ready made lead for both comedies and action films, and that tends to be where the money is. Hes going to hit the main event picture of the box office game just as surely as he did in the professional wrestling industry. And hell be allowed to play as many villains as he likes, for once.

In short, WWEs loss and a tangible one it will be once the ratings start to dip will be Hollywoods gain, and The Rock is going to have to start looking over his shoulder when it comes to getting all the work soon.

By David Cambridge

Sensing that the internet might be a source for new revenue, as well as a gathering place for Daniel Bryan marks, WWE has over recent years began to put segments from its weekly shows up on YouTube.

In eras past, this would have been a difficult way to consume Raw and SmackDown. You would have caught the endings of the night's major matches, sure, and so too all the sickest burns from the opening promo (helpfully trimmed down from its original 45-minute form).

But you would have missed the string that tied it all together: wrestlers plotting in hushed, conspiratorial tones in full view of the camera backstage, JR and The King staring into your living room from ringside, sternly admonishing a havoc-wreaking force who could show up at any moment, or generally fretting over WWE's latest existential crisis.

Today's product is perfect for five-minute YouTube clips because each feud and storyline seems to exist in a vacuum, bearing little or no relationship to anything else happening on the rest of the show. Two wrestlers, brought together by chance and circumstance, merely go to the ring, trade barbs - physical or otherwise - and then head for the showers.

Virtually no other narrative-driven television show or movies operate in this way, the one notable exception perhaps being those ensemble cast romantic-comedy films, whose various sub-plots all unspool across one city on one fateful day (usually Valentine's). And, OK - sort of - Game of Thrones, but Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen were faced with journeys that were bound to intertwine.

If Westeros' string is who will sit on the Iron Throne, then the Attitude Era's was Vince's never-ending feud with Steve Austin, the Corporate Ministry, the unholy McMahon-Helmsley alliance, the Invasion (dubiously executed though it was) - storylines around which the entire two-hour show could be fashioned, under which even mid-card matches and angles therein were often inseparably interwoven with the overarching theme.