During a recent episode of Grilling JR, Jim Ross gave his thoughts on the decision to put The Miz v. John Cena in the main event of Wrestlemania 27. Here’s what he had to say:
I think even during Miz’s run, he was never truly respected like traditional champions were. I don’t know if that was Vince’s apprehension or Vince waiting for Miz to catch on type of thing or to really get over it and connect with the audience wherever it may be. But I’ll always say that your main title, which this was, should go on last. Period. To protect that asset of your championship and the image that it projects. The other thing is, if you want to put the pressure on the young Miz, make him follow The Undertaker and Triple H. Now you’ve got to put your working boots on. But I believe the title should go last. Period. That’s my take on it.
Well, it was a different finish. You had to give it a little bit of thought, and on that night, fans didn’t realize that next year’s WrestleMania had already been booked – the main event part of it. So, that was kind of a disconnect with them because they didn’t know where we were headed eventually for that event. It was a different train of thought and a different presentation. In general, I’m not against that. This was the setup for next year’s WrestleMania in Miami, and Cena was getting booed like crazy. The thing that’s always been funny to me is Cena never turned heel. Why didn’t we do that? Why was that not done? I’ve heard John didn’t want to be a heel, but I don’t really believe that one.
I just think Vince felt like he was such a pristine babyface, but if you listen to the audience, there was a long time there where he wasn’t a pristine babyface…..the audience, more often than not, would tell you what they wanted to buy. You just listen to the reactions. I was always amazed that Cena got booed so much, and it was a lot like Roman Reigns getting booed when he was just getting rolling. The Cena thing, I never quite understood why we didn’t pull the trigger on that deal. But nevertheless, what happened at the end was to create buzz and controversy because it was gonna be hard to follow up with Rock and Cena because Rock had all his projects going. He couldn’t be there every week. It just planted that one seed that was gonna take a year to grow, and at the end of the day, it worked out really well.
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Credit: Grilling JR. H/T 411Mania.
