WINC Watchlist: The Rock's Greatest Matches

Who would have thought that when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson bounced down the Madison Square Garden entrance way at WWE Survivor Series 1996, he would become one of the most important people in the history of the business? 

The Rock is one of the few wrestlers who has transcended pop culture and become an international celebrity, and while he's much better known nowadays for being in movies, that successful Hollywood career wouldn't have happened had it not been for his time in WWE. "The Great One," "The People's Champion," "The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment," to a lot of people, The Rock isn't just WWE, he is professional wrestling. 

An eight-time WWE Champion, a two-time WCW Champion (both reigns coming during the ill-fated Invasion storyline), a two-time WWE Intercontinental Champion, and five reigns as a WWE Tag Team Champion teaming with Mick Foley, The Undertaker, and Chris Jericho. To say The Rock was successful in WWE would be a massive understatement, but he now holds more power in WWE than most, if not all of his peers as he is also a TKO board member, and while some people will argue that he got a head start due to being born into a famous wrestling family, The Rock has done more by himself than most wrestlers will achieve in several lifetimes.

His match catalogue isn't bad either for someone who was really only in WWE on a full-time basis for around six years. The Rock main evented three consecutive WrestleMania's during the critically acclaimed "Attitude Era," faced basically every big name that was available to him, and backed up every nickname that was bestowed upon him by having a number of classic matches. That's what we're here to talk about today.

We are deep into Black History Month and it's only right that we celebrate arguably the most famous black professional wrestler of all time with a watchlist of some of his greatest matches. Narrowing this list down to five was a daunting task to say the least, but just to make sure that as many matches get a shoutout as possible, The Rock's matches with Chris Jericho in 2001, his matches with Mick Foley in 1999, the Ladder Match and Iron Man Match with Triple H from 1998 and 2000 respectively, the SummerSlam 2002 main event with Brock Lesnar, the WrestleMania 28 main event with John Cena, and the WrestleMania 40 match against Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins are the very honorable mentions. 

Without further ado, let's see what we've been cooking when it comes to our watchlist for the greatest matches in the prestigious career of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

The fact that this wasn't the WrestleMania 16 main event still baffles me to this day, because if it was, WrestleMania 16 would be remembered a lot more fondly.

Following the events of WWE's biggest show of the year where Vince McMahon turned on The Rock and sided with Triple H and his daughter Stephanie, adding more power to the McMahon-Helmsley regime in the process, two things were firmly established. The powers that be would do everything in their power to keep Triple H as the WWE Champion, and that The Rock would never be WWE Champion ever again. They managed to get Mick Foley out of the picture, Stone Cold Steve Austin was out of action after being ran down at the 1999 Survivor Series event, and as long as they stacked the deck against The Rock to the point where he couldn't take everyone down by himself, the McMahon-Helmsley regime would last for as long as they wanted it to.

Linda McMahon on the other hand wasn't a fan of what her husband and children were doing, and after The Rock earned himself a shot at Triple H at Backlash, she announced that Austin would in fact be in The Rock's corner to give "The Great One" a helping hand. The problem was that Austin was nowhere to be seen throughout all of Backlash, so when The Rock and Triple H finally got things going, it was more of a handicap match than anything else. Shane McMahon was the special guest referee, consistently trying to help "The Game" by doing fast counts, helping him beat the ten count, and simply not counting at all whenever The Rock built up momentum. Stephanie and Vince were on the outside to keep watch, just in case The Rock needed more of a disadvantage, but that all made this match so magical.

As we all know, the "Attitude Era" wasn't known for its high workrate, which is why it hasn't aged well to some modern fans. However, the chaos and carnage that we saw in this main event was just the right amount of nonsense for it to be considered great. The Rock valiantly battling against the odds made each moment of hope feel massive, especially the double Rock Bottom through the Spanish announce table to "The Game" and Shane. The Stooges, Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco, are substituted in to keep the numbers in their favor, but then the glass breaks.

Genuinely one of the biggest pops in wrestling history, Austin finally makes his return to WWE with a chair in hand. He cleans house in a moment of sheer euphoria, leaving a clear run for Linda and Earl Hebner to swing the odds back in The Rock's favor, who gets the win and the WWE Championship to a thunderous ovation from the fans. WWE could do no wrong during this time, it's just a shame this wasn't at WrestleMania instead.

This is it, ladies and gentlemen: the series finale of the "Attitude Era;" the two biggest stars of the time fighting it out for the richest prize in the business on the grandest stage imaginable. I don't know if those in WWE knew that WrestleMania 17 would become the company's magnum opus at the time, but the show was built as a true cultural event that The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin had the honor of headlining.

The road to WrestleMania started off very simple. Austin won the 2001 Royal Rumble match to earn a shot at the WWE Championship in the main event of WrestleMania, despite Triple H doing everything he could to stop that from happening by assaulting the "Texas Rattlesnake" before the Rumble. They would settle their feud at No Way Out the following month, a show that was headlined by The Rock dethroning Kurt Angle to become the WWE Champion, setting up a rematch from WrestleMania 15. An often forgotten fact about this feud, mainly because it doesn't factor into the WrestleMania 17 main event at all, is that Austin's wife Debra was meant to be in The Rock's corner, but when that was quietly scrapped in favor of Austin being so desperate to win the title back, it made the feud so much better.

Before I watched this match back, it would have been rude of me to skip the iconic Limp Bizkit "My Way" video package. Yes, it still rules now as much as it did then; rest in peace Sam Rivers.

On to the match itself and it's a classic. Easily one of the greatest WrestleMania main events of all time and it's not even close. It's not just the star power or the occasion that makes it great either, the little details are fantastic too. The No Disqualification stipulation allows The Rock and Austin to flow freely throughout the match with no restrictions, beating each other senseless with an urgency that separates it from the two other Mania matches they had. Austin even dug into his old back of tricks by busting out the Million Dollar Dream in order to win, that's how desperate he was to win.

Of course, the Austin heel turn didn't exactly work out for the best, and trying to pull it off in Austin's home state was a bad call because those fans didn't want to boo Austin for anything, so the finish does come off as a bit confusing. However, Austin actually does some of his best work when he working as a heel for me personally, and the closing moments of The Rock being beaten senseless with a chair while blood is splattering all over the place is a glorious image. Aftermath of the heel turn aside, this is outrageously good, and if you said this was The Rock's best match, I wouldn't argue with you.

If WrestleMania 17 is the series finale to the "Attitude Era," Survivor Series 2001 is the finale to the spin-off show every successful TV show eventually gets. It was the conclusion to the Invasion storyline that is widely regarded as one of the biggest missed opportunities in wresting history, and while some things were out of the hands of WWE like Time Warner contracts paying wrestlers to stay at home, the company could have at least done a better job with the highly anticipated WCW/ECW invasion. It might have worked in the late 1990s and the year 2000, but not every major storyline needed a McMahon in every corner.

By the tail end of 2001, Vince McMahon had grown as tired as the fans were of The Alliance trying to take down WWE and decided to put everything on the line in a traditional Survivor Series tag team match. Two teams of five, elimination rules, winner take all, whoever gets the decisive victory would stay in business, and the losers would vanish into the night. Given that WWE had already mapped out their schedule all the way up to WrestleMania 18 at this point, most people knew what was going to happen in the main event, but that didn't stop it from being any less entertaining.

On one side, you had Team WWE made up of The Rock, Chris Jericho, The Undertaker, Kane, and The Big Show, while The Alliance were represented by Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Rob Van Dam, and the WCW owner at the time Shane McMahon. In the early going, Shane is actually the early MVP by using common sense and consistently diving in to break up pinfalls, but that makes his eventual elimination even sweeter. The eliminations do come thick and fast as RVD eliminates Kane with a kick off the top, RVD gets eliminated by Jericho via his version of a Stroke, and it takes all of The Alliance's finishers to get rid of The Big Show.

When all is said and done, this match is really just another way to get a Rock/Austin encore from WrestleMania 17, which no one was arguing against because the two have amazing chemistry. Austin now firmly in the heel role as opposed to the Mania match where the turn happened gradually, and he's even more unhinged here as he was in April. However, The Rock shows out in the closing stretch as he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, and even though Angle is the one to give the assist for the finish, it's The Rock who gets his hand held high. It's matches like this that make me miss the traditional Survivor Series matches because when done right, they are absolutely fantastic. The Alliance died in Greensboro, North Carolina, which was known as WCW territory, so Vince got to rub it in the competition's face one more time for old times sake.

Whenever the topic of "What makes a five star match?" comes up, this is always a match that gets mentioned alongside every Kurt Angle match because he apparently never had one. Remember, wrestling is subjective, form your own opinions; it's not that difficult. Is this a five star match? From a workrate perspective looked through a modern lens, no. But is this a five star match from classic big match feel perspective and is it still looked back on fondly to this day? Absolutely.

After killing both WCW and ECW in November 2001, Vince McMahon decided the best route to success for him and WWE in 2002 was to try and kill his own company by injecting a lethal dose of poison into its veins. The poison was none other than the black and gold of the New World Order, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall, who arrived at No Way Out in February. It was during this show where Hogan came face-to-face with The Rock for the first time which resulted in the two exchanging some verbal barbs, and the following night on "WWE Raw," The Rock made the official challenge to Hogan for a match at WrestleMania 18.

Billed as "Icon vs. Icon," the match is just that, iconic. It's two larger than life performers putting on a show in front of a gargantuan crowd that were hanging on every punch, kick, and throw Rock and Hogan could dish out. It is an interesting match to watch all these years later knowing what we know about it. The Toronto crowd were firmly behind Hogan throughout the whole thing, ultimately leading to the roles reversing and Hogan playing the babyface while The Rock went heel for the closing stretch. It's framed like this turn happened halfway through the match, but it really didn't as Hogan does try and keep the heel work going for the vast majority.

Arguing with the referee, choking The Rock with his wrist tape, the belt shots to the back, trying to disassemble the announce table, Hogan really does try and get people to boo him and credit to him for sticking with it to be honest. However, when he does hulk up, it really is something special. Hogan obviously wasn't as mobile as he was during the peak of Hulkamania, or even in WCW for that matter, but you can't help be caught up in the entire moment, and for a 2002 crowd to see someone kick out of the Atomic Leg Drop, someone needs to invent a time machine so I can be there!

It's a great performance from Hogan, a great performance from The Rock who was really coming into his own at this point. A true clash of the titans that is infinitely rewatchable, even the aftermath where Hall and Nash turn on Hogan isn't bad either. It might not be five stars to some people, but it's a classic either way.

Of all the matches on this watchlist, and even the honorable mentions that we touched on at the start, this is the match that deserves the most flowers considering it's the least famous.

Between The Rock's clash with Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 18 and the Vengeance 2002 main event, a lot had changed. For starters, the company changed from WWF to WWE. The "Attitude Era" had been gone for a while but it was only at this point where people on the roster needed to have some "Ruthless Aggression" about them, and the brand extension had been firmly implemented with "WWE Raw" and "WWE SmackDown" now having their own separate rosters. The only person who was allowed to appear on both shows was the WWE Undisputed Champion, which was The Undertaker heading into Vengeance, but he was being hounded by Kurt Angle who made him tap on an episode of "SmackDown," and The Rock had returned from shooting a movie to claim what he felt was rightfully his, the richest prize in WWE.

Up until Vengeance, virtually every pay-per-view main event of 2002 had been a let down. Many of them had a lot of hype but none of them ever lived up to that hype, but this was a glorious exception. "The Deadman" was finally being paired up with people that forced him to stay in the pocket and work hard to keep the match entertaining, something Hulk Hogan and Triple H couldn't do for him. A newly bald Kurt Angle looked to have finally reached his final form, and despite being in the business for only a couple of years at this point, he was operating on a level that would only rise as 2002 went on. Then there's The Rock, who didn't look like he had any sort of ring rust from being away in Hollywood and picked up where he left off with Hogan at WrestleMania.

For a WWE main event, this goes by so quickly and all three guys pack so much in to what ends up becoming something of a sprint. There is a feeling out process in the early going, but by the end of it, everyone is hitting their finishing moves, they are stealing each other's finishing moves left, right, and center, just the sight of The Rock hitting The Undertaker with a Chokeslam is enough to put this match on this list. Angle is bleeding which is something I'd forgotten about until I watched it back, and even the finish is dramatic as Taker almost breaks up The Rock's pin in time but can't make it before the referee's hand hits the mat for a third time.

One of the best WWE main events of the 2000s, a highly underrated match from The Rock's career, and historic night for "The Great One" as he became the first man to win the WWE Championship seven times.