[Dogeatdog]

Stone Cold was always the man of the Attitude era but 2002 was easily his worst year and there was a lot of factors that contributed to it other than just his neck injury which was causing a lot of issues by late 2001.

2002 saw Triple H’s return from injury after 8 months (literally the first Raw episode of 2002 iirc?) and the debut of the NWO the following month in February. Triple H won the Royal Rumble so he was facing Chris Jericho in the main event for the title.

Stone Cold was pushed into feuding with the NWO (same as The Rock) and he was actually approached first about facing Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania but he declined because he didn’t think they would deliver a great match. The Rock took the opportunity instead which meant that Stone Cold was pushed even further down the WrestleMania card.

Eventually he was so pissed off with how creative were handling his character (plus he was going through a divorce at the same time too) that he walked out of the company.

The Rock in 2002 was gearing up for his acting career after WrestleMania. He was gone after Summerslam 2002 after losing to Brock Lesnar (and fans should watch this match, it’s a good match and it’s really odd to see The Rock get booed so much it’s kinda surreal. Everyone was pissed he was leaving WWE) and he’s only really done the odd appearances since.

I don’t think The Rock has benefited much from Stone Colds injury. He would’ve done if he stayed with WWE consistently (probably more championship reigns) but he was already established as a huge WWE star. The people that benefited were Cena, Angle, Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Big Show since it gave them an opportunity to be pushed as main eventers.