Mania sells itself. It does a million buys every year, with or without The Rock. He helped sell it this year but they still would have done that same sellout and close to that same buyrate.
When Dwayne steps onto WWE television, he's working for HHH just because Hunter is a major office player (Vince is still in charge but Mr. Hs is moving up). Hunter more than anyone else probably wished that Rock would blow up in Hollywood so he could have the WWF to himself.
Did they have the arena tarped off for Raw or something? What about MitB? SummerSlam? Punk hasn't single handedly saved wrestling but he gave the WWE a major shot in the arm and he and Cena have had the best feud WWE has seen in a long time. Punk deserved, and I hope he got, a major raise. First he carries Orton to the first interesting feud he's had in years and a good match at Mania and then he brings the absolute best out of Cena in the ring and on the mic. The fact that the buyrates for the Punk-Cena matches are way up is another reason.
No, I don't think Hunter cared about that jab. Why should he? Punk talks about his wife on tv so a jab about his barely existent movie career is supposed to upset him? HHH is a pure wrestler, to the point where people don't call him "Paul" but "Hunter". They're not like the rest of us. They're a unique bunch.
Dwayne's not a wrestler anymore, he's a movie star. He's not Austin or Hogan, who stayed in the business while they did other things. He walked completely away and came back. He's very much like Floyd Mayweather to me: he grew up in the business so he's seen the negatives up close so he doesn't love it like a Cena or HHH, who dreamed of being pro wrestlers. That's not a knock at all. I think that's the right mentality for a business like pro sports/pro wrestling.
