#3.) Rocky Maivia 1996-1997
This is another case where a lot more good ultimately ended up coming out of it. In 1996, The Rock debuted as Rocky Maivia – a young, colorful and energetic upstart who came from the Samoan wrestling family. Vince McMahon clearly had the vision of him being his main event star, but he didn’t expect it to happen in the way that it did.
Rocky Maivia’s cheesy babyface persona and appearance meant that fans would reject him right away, famously chanting “Die Rocky!Die!”. This allowed him to return from injury as a heel and he would get started with The Nation of Domination. After that, he would have a brief babyface run before turning heel quickly after in 1998 when he won the WWF title at Survivor Series: Deadly Games.
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