While the fans seemed to be eating up the sketch, behind the scenes, WWE executives were fuming. CEO Vince McMahon thought wasting over 20 minutes on a “talking segment” was a stupid idea and ordered the writers never to let it happen again, while Executive Director Bruce Prichard was “pissed off” that they were going over the allotted time and would have to cut other segments. Their anger was somewhat soothed the next day when they found out that the sketch was the highest-rated Raw segment ever, at 8.4 points (over three times the rating of the average Young Rock episode today).
After that, McMahon reconsidered his “never again” position, and they actually repeated the gimmick twice, once with The Rock honoring Foley and once with Foley honoring John Cena.
To this day, it’s still one of the most remembered segments in the history of the show, and it had nothing to do with wrestling. The lesson is clear: if NBC wants Young Rock ratings to triple, change the premise of the show from “The Rock reminisces” to “The Rock tracks down people from his past and threatens to shove stuff up their butts.”
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