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While obviously I love professional wrestling, there are few things in life I love more than Star Wars. I don’t need to explain to anyone reading this what Star Wars is, but since I was three years old, it’s been one of the true joys of my life.
However, there is one thing I absolutely detest in Star Wars, and it’s Rian Johnson’s film The Last Jedi.
Why?
The character of Luke Skywalker is all but eviscerated in how he is presented (and yeah, spoilers here but these films have been out forever), and for fans like me who waited 30 years to see Mark Hamill perform that role again, it was very much a betrayal of everything Luke stood for. The character who fought to save his father from the Dark Side was willing, even fleetingly, to murder his own nephew because someone was trying to corrupt his nephew? Yeah, that doesn't fly in the face of anything everyone has known about Luke Skywalker since he first appeared in 1977. By the time the film ends - with Luke Skywalker’s needless death - I felt, for the first time in my life, that I didn’t care anymore and I didn’t need to see the next film. It felt like something I cared about and used to escape reality for fun, was now broken.
There's lot of other reasons the film doesn't work as a Star Wars film, but we'll ignore those here. The bottom line was The Last Jedi divided the audience that lived and loved Star Wars and in the aftermath, Disney has never been able to correctly course-correct it and since then, they’ve had films that weren’t received well, series that crashed and burned and the licensing, toys, etc. that were the lifeblood that kept Star Wars coursing through the pop culture pulse for endless decades are now ignored on shelves, populate discount stores and are all but passed on by most. Hell, a Star Wars-themed hotel was even put out to pasture, partially because it was so pricey but mostly because most don’t care about Star Wars the way they used to.
As a Star Wars fan, it pains me, but the reality is that film is where everything I and many others cared about cracked into pieces. I’ve tried to watch the film again from time to time and it’s beautifully shot - one of the most beautiful Star Wars films ever from a cinematography perspective - but it always falls apart. For me, there’s no redeeming this film, because it works against every tenant of what makes Star Wars great. It forced a square through a round space, breaking the internal logic and the magic all at the same time.
Last night, as I watched Friday Night Smackdown and bore witness to The Rock’s return and his face-off with Cody Rhodes, I realized that I was watching the professional wrestling version of The Last Jedi and boy, you can imagine how that made me feel.
Let’s review the last few times we saw the Rock. He was victorious at Wrestlemania 40 Night One. Then, he was vanquished by The Undertaker on Night Two as Cody captured the WWE Championship. Rock teased returning to challenge Cody for the title and warned him not to break his heart. Six months later, The Rock appears at Bad Blood, leering at both Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes…and then?
The Rock isn’t seen again until The Raw Netflix debut, where he lavishes Cody Rhodes with compliments and praises everyone and everything in sight, which can almost be excused by the fact this is a big day for the company and Rock is playing company mascot and cheerleader. In the days following Raw, I certainly did just that, pointing out this was about a celebratory moment for the company as opposed to any existing stories.
But last night’s Smackdown, like The Last Jedi, broke the internal logic and the magic. The Rock returns and announces New Orleans gets another deserved Wrestlemania, but then he calls out Cody. The Rock explains that he and Cody have become friends since Wrestlemania 40….
So why did The Rock come out and leer at Cody and Roman at Bad Blood, then?
The Rock talks about what a great job Cody has done as WWE Champion, but now The Rock wants him as “his champion” while explaining that Rock has the most power of everyone in WWE, because he’s on the Board of Directors of TKO, which owns WWE….
But, isn’t Cody already by definition “his champion” since this place is Rock’s company?
The Rock says that Cody has to make a decision about whether he’s going to be Rock’s guy because the Rock can take him from “here to here”, implying he can make Cody’s dreams come true…
But didn’t Cody’s dreams come true when he finally won the WWE Championship, achieving the goal for his late father?
Didn’t he walk through fire and brimstone and adversity and heartbreak to become the man?
Isn’t Cody, as WWE Champion, already at the pinnacle of what the pro wrestling world is about?
Cody Rhodes acts all out of sorts as if he is being pulled from the heavens by The Devil himself, but why would Cody - even if he and The Rock are “friends” behind the scenes - suddenly find himself struggling with his morals and his convictions and where he stands and what he should do?
We’ve seen these moments in WWE history before - whether it’s Ted DiBiase offering to buy the WWE title or Steve Austin being tempted with selling out to corporate WWE - but this moment offered none of that drama, just an ongoing monologue by The Rock as he said the same thing 12 different ways, repeating himself at times along the way, and then hitting us with a big finale.
He doesn’t want Cody’s title.
He wants Cody’s soul.
So, The Rock, after complimenting his “friend” and everything he’s done to be a success for the company Rock controls, now wants to turn Cody to the dark side or something?
Cody looks like someone kidnapped Pharaoh the Dog as this ends, as if The Rock has stabbed him in the heart, as if some terrible thing has befallen him, but all that happened was the WWE Champion stood there forced to endure a monologue that sounded like it put The Big Easy to sleep.
Oh, and Cody has to give an answer at the Elimination Chamber, detracting from the fact that six wrestlers are going through war to earn the right to face Cody at Wrestlemania.
My friends, this was some Last Jedi sh**.
It did nothing to serve Cody, the fans or even The Rock.
It was just done, because, well, who really knows?
It felt needless and out of nowhere, with nothing to really support it.
Sort of like Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi.
It also appears that for the second year in a row, The Rock came down off Rock Mountain and decided to insert himself and change the trajectory of Wrestlemania….oh…wait….The Rock said in the post-show press conference that all this stuff with he and Cody, which WWE just devoted nearly 30 minutes to on their television show, doesn’t have to end with a match between Cody and Rock?
What are we doing here?
The entire point of this industry is good vs. evil facing off in a fight.
If that's not where this is going, why the hell is this story even being told?
If that's not where any of this is going, then what was the point of the tease the day after Wrestlemania 40? Of The Rock warning Cody not to break his heart? Of the watch Cody gifted him? Of the leering tease at Bad Blood? At any of this?
Why exactly did Rock return from Rock Mountain?
To put over Moana 2's box office success?
For all the talk about how great WWE Creative is these days - and it is - the entire scene last night made so very little sense compared to well, anything else going on - and it makes even less sense when you actually pay attention to every other Rock appearance over the last year - and the more you think about it, the less sense it makes.
WWE used to be the company where Vince McMahon didn’t care about what happened before. He believed the audience wouldn’t care, because he didn’t care. When WWE, under the new regime, began presenting things to the audience that they should care about, the audience responded and the quality of the company got much better. So, when things like last night happen and they don’t make sense, it stands out, badly, because the audience wants and deserves better - and WWE has already trained them to expect better. WWE has evolved and everyone involved needs to recognize that.
Last night’s scene made very little sense. Even if WWE wants to dismiss that “smarter” fans (who are usually militant beyond reason) caring about such things should be ignored, the reality is the live fans in New Orleans weren’t entertained, at least based on their reactions. They were thrilled Wrestlemania was coming to their home and then they were, at best, perplexed or at worst, bored by the scene that played out before their eyes. I can imagine some in WWE will argue that reaction was what they wanted, to keep fans on the hook to see what happens next, but live in the moment, it may as well have been a bathroom break segment - and that should never be when The Rock and the WWE Champion are in the ring facing off.
But that's what it was. A segment where fans live started out jubilant but were anything but at the end…
The good news here is that WWE is a living, breathing mechanism in terms of entertainment. When Star Wars releases a film or a TV series, it’s locked in forever, good or bad, and even when they try to pivot and fix things that didn’t work., they can’t ignore what they’ve already created. It's there and if the fans reject it, well, it's rejected.
WWE is live theater as much as anything else, which means that they can actually course-correct in real time - if they want to. That’s an asset that Star Wars will never have, but the lessons should be considered nonetheless - Star Wars went too far with Luke Skywalker and in doing so, severed an important piece of their legacy. More importantly, the connection a massive portion of the audience had with the property was never, ever the same.
WWE’s connection with the audience has rarely been stronger than it is today. A major part of that is that the audience grew up with Cody Rhodes and when he returned, they returned with him. They wanted to see him as champion and persevered with him through all the setbacks and losses and willed him to victory. Now, they want to be with him as he reigns over the company and battles his challengers.
The vast majority of wrestling fans respect and love The Rock. They are happy to see him and have him around, but I don’t believe they want him crashing through their screens like Black Adam enforcing his will. They didn’t want him to force Cody out of the Wrestlemania main event last year and I don’t believe the majority want him to be the 2025 equivalent of Mr. McMahon attempting to corrupt Cody into a Corporate Champion. There’s a pulse to what the audience wants and last night was far off that pulse.
WWE needs to be extremely cautious with how they proceed. Certainly, there are ways to retroactively explain every little piece of past events away so they make sense, but that has little to do with whether they should proceed, especially if it’s not leading to Rock and Cody exchanging blows on a big PPVs. If the company pushes too hard, they run the risk of cooling off Cody or forcing at least a portion of the audience to throw their hands up, potentially severing their connection to WWE as a property.
WWE is on an impressive hot streak right now, but it shouldn’t be risked for anyone or anything. Not even The Rock is worth risking losing that, because once you lose the audience’s love and excitement, it’s near-impossible to just get it back.
Star Wars, the greatest cinematic property in history, has failed to do it - and likely never will, not at the level of success and prestige it once held. WWE needs to be very careful to make sure Cody Rhodes, their living, breathing Luke Skywalker, doesn’t fall to the same fate as his cinematic counterpart. Should Cody fall, a major part of what makes WWE so successful and prestigious right now, goes with him…and when that happens, you can’t just hit reset and start over. WCW saw that with Bill Goldberg decades ago.
Sure, WWE has lots of other performers that are over and adored by the audience, but Cody is the guy. The audience has made that clear. Luke Skywalker was the guy for the majority of those who loved Star Wars - and when he was cleared off the board, the audience never cared as much again, not as much as they did before that moment.
WWE under Endeavor has for the most part navigated everything very carefully and successfully. The lone exception has been when The Rock gets involved. It’s time for a long, hard discussion about how The Rock can best serve the company creatively when he appears, because every single time he shows up, he shoves the company into the path of an asteroid field it now has to figure a way out of - and sooner or later, the odds they hit one get ever greater.
Star Wars was broken by The Last Jedi.
WWE should heed the lessons that Lucasfilm learned the hard way- and their fruitless efforts to repair Star Wars since.
Once you break the internal logic and magic, very rarely can you bring that back unscathed.
Let's hope Cody Rhodes fares better than Luke Skywalker, because as goes Cody, goes WWE - and we've seen the path a few terrible decisions led Star Wars.
The weeks to come should be extremely interesting to follow...or they could be very frustrating.
We will soon find out.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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