The Associated Press has published a report on the hype for WrestleMania 28 that will hit news outlets starting this weekend and carrying into next week. It focuses largely on The Rock’s return to WWE and how it’s himself, John Cena, WWE from the business end. The article notes that WWE is looking for one million PPV buys after last year’s event did that number with Rock guest-hosting. It used one week of TV ratings to call the overall build a success despite the ratings being below expectations, saying, “Fans have tuned in, though not quite in the monster numbers of Johnson’s “Attitude Era” heyday. The March 12 Raw averaged 4.82 million viewers (4.97 million watched the second hour of the show) which bested the highest-rated NCAA tournament cable game, Kansas vs. Purdue (4.43 million viewers).”
Check out the highlights of The Rock and John Cena’s interviews below:
The Rock on John Cena being “The Guy” to come back for a match with: “There’s no one I can do that with right now other than John. He’s far and above everyone else in terms of popularity. He’s the guy. Is he Stone Cold? No. Is he Hogan? No. But he is John Cena and he’s been on top for a long time now.”
John Cena on The Rock’s return: “I was a fan in ’99. I’m not a fan now. I don’t know what he’s got going on upstairs…We’ve been griping like two little kids now for about a year. Now, everybody wants to see us fight.”
The Rock on the locker room’s reaction to him: “The best part of me coming back is hearing them say, ‘You’ve inspired me, thank you.’ That’s the greatest compliment that I can get. It’s so cool man. They don’t talk about movies. They don’t talk about other matches. It’s just, ‘You’ve inspired me.'”
On Brock Lesnar being a potential opponent for him at WrestleMania 29: “I’m not saying a thing. [Laughs] I didn’t say anything.”
