25 biggest pro wrestling ‘what ifs’ of the past 25 years

16. What if The Rock doesn’t leave WWE for Hollywood?

If Brock Lesnar was billed as “The Next Big Thing”, then it stands to reason that The Rock was THE Thing. As Lesnar was running over legends like Hulk Hogan (and Stone Cold Steve Austin had he not taken his ball and gone home), The Rock had solidified himself as arguably the biggest star in the business, which is why he was the man that Lesnar defeated at SummerSlam in 2002 to win his first WWE Championship after debuting not even five months earlier the night after WrestleMania X8. But I digress.

With Austin gone, The Rock had become the face of WWE (if he wasn’t already) and Hollywood was all over him. He had movie and television offers and following his loss to Lesnar, The Rock left for about six months before returning to reignite his feud with Hulk Hogan, whom he had defeated at WrestleMania X8, and would also face Austin one last time at WrestleMania XIX, which turned out to be Stone Cold’s final match. He soon after took a loss to Goldberg and once again left to pursue more acting opportunities. He would show up from time to time and teamed with Mick Foley to take on Evolution at WrestleMania XX in what would be his last match for seven years.

So what if The Rock either just never left WWE or had failed in Hollywood and not become the biggest movie star on the planet? What then? The guess here is that John Cena would not have tied Ric Flair with the most title wins at 16 because The Rock would have surpassed that number long ago. He’s a 10-time champion as it is and with all of the title swapping that happened in WWE in the 2000s, it’s almost a guarantee that he’d have 20 by now. Furthermore, much like the Lesnar situation, would John Cena have gotten to where he is with The Rock around? I think Cena still would have found a way to become a star but maybe not at the level of where he is today.

Along those same lines, does Triple H win as many titles as he did with The Rock around? It’s unfortunate that those two never locked up at WrestleMania and at least this scenario probably gives that to us. The entire decade looks a lot different had The Rock not left. But even before that…