Forget Lesnar and Reigns; Will Smith and Chris Rock should headline WrestleMania 38
Few organizations in sports, or entertainment, are as savvy as World Wrestling Entertainment, but Vince McMahon’s baby blew it when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars.
Vince should have been on the phone immediately to the groups who represent both Smith and Rock, and invited them both to WrestleMania 38, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday this weekend at AT&T Stadium.
A Fresh Prince vs. The Other Rock rematch would break every ratings record ever established by WWE.
What Smith and Rock could do for themselves, and the WWE, would eclipse what the late Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lawler did for themselves, and their “sport,” before pro wrestling became the international machine that it is today.
Despite Smith’s Instapology to Rock he issued about 24 hours after he smacked Rock on stage at the Academy Awards for his joke about his wife’s lack of hair, a topic of conversation was if the whole ordeal was staged.
If Will Smith and Chris Rock had just Andy Kaufman’d the Academy Awards.
On Wednesday, I visited with current WWE star Bianca Belair, and asked her if she thought the Smith/Rock throwdown was real.
If anyone could speak to whether such a slap was real or staged, it would be WWE pros.
The question made Blair uncomfortable as she promptly handed the phone to a PR rep, who said they would not answer such questions. (For the record, she answered everything else and was professional throughout.)
In a later interview with another outlet, Mark Calaway, aka The Undertaker, was asked about it and had no problem addressing it.
On Wednesday night at a scheduled stand up show in Boston, Rock briefly addressed the incident on stage.
“How was your weekend?” he asked the audience, according to Vanity Fair. “I don’t have a bunch of (bleep) about what happened, so if you came to hear that, I have a whole show I wrote before this weekend. I’m still kind of processing what happened. So, at some point I’ll talk about that (bleep). And it will be serious and funny.”
There is enough video evidence that it will fuel conspiracy lovers that Smith v. Rock was as real as an Avengers movie, as unscripted as a WWE match.
There is the image of Smith chuckling at Rock’s joke that Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, was preparing for her role in the movie, “G.I. Jane 2.”
Then there is the image of Rock appearing to brace for impact when Smith threw the smack heard ‘round the Internet.
The counter to this is why would Will Smith do this on a night where he was nominated for Best Actor? It’s not as if he needs the attention.
Comedians, like Rock, are typically fearless and have no problem making the audience the butt of the joke.
A potential smack in the face can be “worth it.”
Andy Kaufman’s entire career was made on making the audience uncomfortable, wondering if he was serious or playing it straight. He thrived on public confrontation, because it made people uncomfortable.
Before Kaufman died in 1984, he made his name with stunts that no one had seen before.
He would participate in smaller, regional professional wrestling matches, usually in the south, where he would incite the audience with slurs and stereotypes. He loved his role as a heel.
When he did wrestle, he would only wrestle women.
He created something called “The Intergender” championship belt.
He eventually started a “feud” with wrestling star Jerry “The King” Lawler that went viral long before going viral was a thing.
In 1982, Kaufman and Lawler took their feud to new talk show “Late Night With David Letterman.” All three played the confrontation so straight everyone in the audience was sure it was real.
When Lawler slapped Kaufman to the ground on national TV before a live audience, there was no doubt. It was legitimate. That could not have been an act.
But it was.
Lawler and Kaufman scripted the entire relationship, right down to the smack on Letterman.
There is no way to quantify the impact of that “feud,” and that slap, had on Lawler, Kaufman or wrestling.
Before this “incident,” pro wrestling in the United States was cut up into regions televised by smaller, regional networks. It was an after-hours event with small crowds in small venues.
The idea of a WrestleMania, and filling a 100,000 seat stadium, for pro wrestling was as foreseeable as Facebook back in 1982.
Kaufman versus Lawler raised the profile of pro wrestling, and is one of the specific reasons why it was able to leave late night TV and become part of the American sports scene.
Neither Chris Rock nor Will Smith needed to raise their respective profiles. Neither is hurting for money.
Smith’s smackdown of Rock looked like the reaction of an angry man who lost his cool. It all looked legit.
So did Lawler’s smackdown of Kaufman.
Which is why the upcoming WrestleMania needs to feature The Fresh Prince versus The Other Rock.
This story was originally published March 30, 2022 at 4:47 PM.
