I think the only people on the current roster I've heard cite The Rock as an influence - and feel free to chime in with others if you can - are Miz and Ricochet. Which is weird as hell to me because even if you take his post-WWE success out of the equation, he's still one of the most popular and influential wrestlers in the company's history. Dude was the 1B to Austin's 1A at the height of the Attitude era and you still got all these new cats coming up like "I wanna be the next Shawn Michaels!
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Mind you, that's not a knock on Shawn; mans is a legend in his own right. It just feels weird to me, in a time where WWE is global and literally begging for mainstream clout, to not look at the biggest crossover star in the company's history as the blueprint for where you want your career to go. Cena was the face of the company, which meant he had more access and opportunity than everyone. Yet somehow he only just recently was like, "Hmmm, this wrestling shyt ain't gonna last forever. Maybe Hollywood is the move.
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I get that some truly do not have any aspirations beyond wrestling. WWE is the endgame for those people, and that's fine. I just don't believe for a second that is the case for everyone, nor does it make me stop thinking the current roster may be aiming too low or sqaundering their opportunities.
I know there was a stigma in the locker room around using WWE to parley into other things during Cena's comeup. I wonder if that's still the case or not.