411’s WWE Unreal Episode Four Report: Heel Turn

-We roll along and this time, judging by the title, we get to Elimination Chamber. Let’s get to it!

-We start with The Rock and Ed Koskey putting over The Rock’s greatness. The Rock himself says The Final Boss is the greatest heel wrestling has seen. Debatable! Rock says becoming this new version was the most gratifying decision he has ever made.

-Nick Khan says he and The Rock go back almost 40 years to a childhood in Hawaii. Apparently after Mania XL the WWE fans had a demand to see The Rock come back. Khan says they had Elimination Chamber with Toronto with a tough Canadian economy, so they called in The Rock. They had Travis Scott onboard and Nick had HHH and Rock talk.

-To the writer’s room where HHH breaks the news that Rock is back to cut a promo in New Orleans, that will lead to Elimination Chamber. The idea is to help boost Elimination Chamber. We see Rock’s promo in New Orleans where he tells Cody he wants his soul. Koskey says when the Rock shows up it has to be something seismic. It can’t just be a one off, but I mean, we got a lot of those from The Rock over the years. We get video of various YouTube creators reacting online. You know the ones. Nick thought it was perfect and even if the fans didn’t get it then, they all knew they would and they would be making history.

-Show opening!

-We jump back to John Cena announcing his retirement at Money in The Bank 2024. Cena says he wishes he could do this longer and he hopes the investment in him can be returned 100 fold. HHH calls Cena one of the greatest in the history of the business and runs down he is doing a full calendar year with limited dates. “If this was a movie, we would CGI John and make him look like everyone’s memories, but it’s not what we do.” Eh, give them time!

-Punk says he was in the crowd to listen to Cena’s promo but couldn’t hear what he was saying due to how loud it was. HHH says Cena has a top character spot and it’s amazing, but also comes with a lot of questions. We see Cena go backstage and everyone is stunned by his announcement. A reporter asks Cena about turning heel and he says he doesn’t know how much impact that will have as that goes against everything he values.

-We discuss heels and they show us Razor, Boss Man, Flair, The Rock, and Prison Dom. I am sure some will be bothered they had Dom included in that group. Hayes says to be a heel you need to like people booing you. We see Ted Dibiase kick the basketball away from a kid. That was brilliant. SHAWN MICHAELS PUTTING MARTY THROUGH THE BARBER SHOP WINDOW! Eddie telling Dom he is his father. Piper hitting Snuka with a coconut. I love all of this and just give me a constant loop of all these moments.

-Then we get to the most famous heel turn ever and it certainly hits different now. Hulk Hogan walks down the aisle at Bash in the Beach 96, drops a leg on Randy Savage and the nWo is born. I needed to see that moment and it made me smile.

-Michael Hayes gives us his legal name, Michael Joseph Seitz. He has been known as Lord Michael Hayes, Freebird Michael PS Hayes. BAD STREET! You give me Bad Street, Hogan’s heel turn, and Shawn putting Marty through a window? Take all my money Netflix! Hayes says he spent a lot of nights looking up at the lights because he was a bad guy. He would get the small wins, but in the end the good guy has to win. He says winning is important, but not the only thing. Creating interest for the fans is the real ticket.

-Xavier Woods is next and his name is Austin Watson. He went by The Batman for a while, and amazingly he didn’t get sued. Disney would have sued. Awesome Austin Creed was the next name he used and that is his gamer tag. He talks about talking the world by storm with New Day and says they are the greatest tag team, trio, and group of all time. Again, debatable!

-We know what story he is going to tell and there is so much that has happened this year in wrestling, this feels like a lifetime ago. New Day has a 10 year celebration and Big E returns to reunite Woods and Kofi. He offers to be their manager and then everyone gets their hearts ripped out as Woods (expected) and Kofi (shocking) turn heel on Big E. It’s like Lisa Simpson breaking Ralph’s heart. Woods says people despise them now and the covers the New Day chant. It is back to what it started with “New Day Sucks.” Woods says it’s wild and they go to Atlanta, his home, and he gets booed out of the building. Hayes says it is a thin line between love and hate in this business. Woods gets shunned by his family in the front row as they are wearing New Days Sucks shirts. They had to be having a blast on the inside. Hayes says the key to the New Day heel turn was to not let the audience see it coming.

-HHH says the hardest thing is keeping something secret. Hayes says you leak the script on any show and the stories won’t hit as well. Koskey talks about how the fans have been calling for a Cena heel turn for years, but they can’t because of his Make A Wish and being an ambassador for WWE. Prichard says the idea was to put Cena against top guys for a year and that was baby face Cena vs. baby face Cody. They were good with that plan. Khan wanted something more and that is why Rock was brought back.

-If the Rock is back that means Brian Gewirtz gets called back to active duty. He is listed as SVP Development for The Rock. That is a heck of a specific, and I am assuming, lucrative title. The idea of face Cena vs. face Cody felt dry to them. Gewirtz had the idea of Cody being Rock’s Champion. That was the hook. The idea was for him to turn down the final Boss and Rock making an impromptu Title Match with Kevin Owens right there and he walks out with The Championship. The Canadian crowd would have cheered Owens like crazy if that happened.

-HHH can’t remember who said it first. Prichard says it was him, Ed and HHH in a room. HHH compares it to Marvel’s Multiverse. They liked the idea Rock had, but didn’t want to change The Championship that close to Mania. The initial conversation took 45 minutes and they threw out What If scenarios. We get some pencil drawn animations with different scenarios and the first idea was Cody accepting and dropping Cena. Bruce said “what if we turned John Cena.” HHH says it checked all the boxes as it added to the Cody story and Cena’s story for the year.

-HHH says he talked to Rock, Cody, Cena, Travis Scott, and Nick Khan. He called Nick first and ran the idea behind him. He loved it! He calls Rock next and told him to just listen. He wasn’t sure if Rock hated it, but at the end said it was genius. They spent another 30 minutes going back and forth with ideas. He then called Travis Scott next. Wait, what? You called Scott before Cena? Cody was blown away and didn’t expect that idea. HHH says Cena is always telling him, “if you believe it, I’m in.” This was Paul talking to John Cena the human being because it impacts everything that is John Cena outside WWE. Cena loved it and started firing off texts with ideas to HHH. They all started texting each other and agreed nobody gets the information outside of the six on that text line. Still mind blowing that Travis Scott was in on the most shocking heel turn in WWE history. Yeah, I said WWE history.

-Elimination Chamber: Cody says Rock is interlinked with his career now and it’s not something he had on his bingo card. Cody says this story is the most confused the WWE audience has ever been. Yeah, we were quite confused after Rock’s NOLA promo.

-Cena is getting ready backstage and says he is still wearing original 2001 OVW knee pads. That’s cool! Hayes is sitting down with all the men in the Elimination Chamber and this is the stuff I like seeing. Cody is just sitting back and watching and says it is quite the scene as it’s Logan Paul, Cena, Priest, Rollins, McIntyre, and Punk. This is the good stuff as we get a nice run of them throwing out ideas and working out things together.

-They get in the ring for some rehearsal time. Punk says The Chamber is the stupidest match they do here. To be fair, this is Punk’s first time in the “safer” Chamber. All HHH told them was after the match there will be aftermath. Hayes says he was told the day of and thought it made all the sense in the world.

-HHH and Rock meet and HHH says he wants to hash out what’s going to happen. He tells Rock that Travis is a big star, but Rock is bigger. He feels The Final Boss needs to be the last man out with his music and Rock agrees. They go over if Rock already had a plan with John or if it’s something John jumped on after Cody said no. They agree it’s best that it is a plan with Rock and Cena. HHH thinks the heat needs to be on John and Rock should just hang back and not do anything physical. Rock mentions Cena needs to go crazy like Piper/Snuka and then they hold Cody down so Rock can get in one belt shot. Not sure that’s what HHH wanted but he agrees and says they will get everyone together to hash it out.

-We see everyone getting loose backstage before the Men’s Elimination Chamber. Travis Scott is nearly jumping out of his skin and Rock is keeping him on an even plane. We have quite a few people on headset so I am guessing they had a lot of producers for this one. We get the comedy side of Punk as he he fixes the lights that fell off his pod. Prichard says Cena looks like a video game character in his pod. Punk is the last man in the ring and I forgot we had a brief Punk/Logan rivalry that had me worried they were putting them against each other at Mania.

-Punk/Cena happens for a few moments and it made me so happy. We saw later in the year that they still have crazy chemistry with each other. Rollins gets pinned by Punk and it’s down to Punk vs. Cena. Rollins hits Punk with a stomp on the steel and Cena takes advantage and doesn’t just pin Punk. He puts Punk in the STFU. Should have picked up on that as being a heel move. He could have just pinned an out cold Punk, but instead opted to make him suffer.

-HHH says the truck had no clue what was going to happen. We meet Marty Miller, who is a director in the truck. He has been with WWE for 30 years. When the Cena segment happened he was told by Paul to just follow along. He told them all to lay out and he would walk them through it step by step. We get some sweet split screen action with Gorilla, the ring, and the truck all working together. That’s awesome! Travis Scott comes out and they must not want to pay for “Fiend” as it’s not played. We hear HHH tell the truck that Cody is going to say “go fuck yourself,” and he is okay with it airing. The truck says to just let it play. He then tells the truck to stay wide after that and they will see what happens. This is great and is getting me fired up! It’s just building and it’s wild as we know what’s going to happen, but it still has me on the edge of my seat. “HEY ROCK. GO FUCK YOURSELF.”

-We see HHH giving full direction to the truck of what to shoot and when and then it happens. They show the people in the crowd that are in complete shock. HHH: “Listen to me, John is going to beat the shit out of him. Stay on Cena.” We hear HHH tell McAfee to correct Cole as he called the Rolex a pair of brass knuckles. We see the infamous slap from Travis that wrecked Cody. No reaction from HHH in the moment. I still have no clue what Scott was doing with the sage.

-HHH congratulates everyone in Gorilla. The truck is celebrating as well. This was great and I am so glad they documented all of this. I wish we had stuff like this with Hogan’s turn, but obviously a way different time. Hayes says there was a collective gasp from the audience and that is where the money is. That’s why you keep secrets. They say this on a show they are giving away secrets. Not complaining, but I found it funny.

-We get more YouTube reactions and there’s my boys from In The Clutch again. Cena says he has never once not been surprised by the audience. We see video of kids crying at home. Again, I needed this stuff when Hogan turned heel.

-We see Rock telling HHH that he told Travis to slap Cody, but “lay it in.” HHH and Rock laugh that they heard it. We see Cody getting blood wiped off his face and he talks to Travis Scott in video chat. Cena says he won’t spoil anything going forward. To the press conference where Cena drops the mic and walks away.

-Credits!

-I felt this episode took a little bit to get going, but it kept building and all the stuff from the germ of the idea of Cena turning to the execution was awesome. Yes, I was also a sucker for the classic heel footage as well. For a moment I didn’t think they would bring up Hogan’s heel turn, but they had to, and they didn’t disappoint. We have mentioned they are only letting us see what they want on camera, but this definitely paints a different picture than what I thought went down. The KO being Rock’s Champion deal was something I never heard and would have been interesting, but again, I think the Canadian crowd cheers like crazy for KO and I agree with HHH’s side that ending Cody’s reign like that and a month short of Mania didn’t seem right. It was interesting watching Rock and HHH collaborate together, and I have been a sucker for seeing the wrestlers sit down and piece a match together with an agent. I know this show isn’t for everyone, but this has always been fascinating to me. We have one episode to go and I am curious if they touch on Rock not being there for Mania. Thanks for reading!