Last year I wrote a piece about how WWE’s World Heavyweight Championship should be axed and how we needed just one undisputed champion. It’s interesting how only two months later we got exactly what I (And a lot of other fans) demanded. Now, I’m not saying I can predict the future or anything but if WWE want to take pointers from this next piece then I wholeheartedly welcome them. They obviously won’t of course but hey ho, it’s fun to speculate. As the year closes out I confess to not watching much of the product this year. We can always point to reasons such as the Grumpy Cat being a guest host of RAW or whatever but a larger issue is WWE’s stubbornness to acknowledge any sense of modernity regarding their most trusted and valued figurehead. We are coming close to ten years of John Cena being the top guy of the WWE; ten years of never giving up, of hustle, loyalty, respect but more importantly ten years of stagnation, lack of effort and wasted potential. Wrestlemania 21 was a clear signpost of the changing of the guard and Wrestlemania 31 will most likely be a signpost of the guard having never budged a fucking inch as cobwebs form under his nose and pigeons take a dump on his bright multicoloured shirts.
This may sound really odd but John Cena reminds me of Anita Sarkeesian in a way. You can produce a well written argument against their presence in their respective fields and while a few people have done that, all sensible thought is drowned out by an avalanche of childish screaming and pointless hatred. “John Cena sucks! He can’t wrestle! He’s the worst thing in wrestling! He’s destroyed the wrestling business! He buries everyone” is not uncommonly heard when browsing most wrestling forums and online communities. Yes, there are problems with his character – even respected veteran Mick Foley has addressed this. Most of this post will be related to how to go about fixing John Cena but in order to get it out of the way first I’m going to quickly go over everything that is wrong with Cena at the moment.
OK….deep breath.
John Cena is obviously shares many parallels with Hulk Hogan which is evident through his incorruptible passion to always do what is right and is displayed as the ideal role model for children everywhere. “Never Give Up” his merchandise often encourages, a simple tagline for kids to follow and aspire to live by. This isn’t far removed from the “Say Your Prayers and Eat Your Vitamins” shtick that Hogan lived and breathed in the 1980’s. Yet there’s a big difference between Hulk and Cena – Hogan knew how to act vulnerable. For comparison’s sake, look up Hogan’s reaction when he first lost the title in 1988 where the poor fucker was nearly in tears. Whenever Cena loses in a big time situation, he tends to just shrug it off, go “herp a derp, I lost” and win in the end anyway; almost as if he’s cognisant and knows that there’s no chance of him losing. Many people liken John Cena to Superman, claiming him to be a boring, vanilla do gooder like the Man of Steel but even that is a harsh comparison and kind of an insult to Superman. Superman at least had the decency to be killed off in the 90s. Kal-El is burdened with the task of being a symbol of hope to a planet who doesn’t always love and in some cases conspires against him. He (depending on whatever continuity DC wants to run) is the last of his race and deals with loneliness, loss and juggling two separate identities. There's something in Superman that WWE forgot to give Cena - struggle. This is a basic foundation of character development that John Cena cannot even come close to. John Cena does not know vulnerability and is protected to the nth degree and we’ve had to put up with this for so many years. Basically, this is why I do not like the character that John Cena portrays.
What’s even more insulting is the fact that WWE is blatantly aware of this issue. They know that a large part of their audience dislikes Cena and have hinted at a possible heel turn only to go back to the soul crushing status quo. I get the impression that WWE thinks we should just live with this because fuck our opinions. Cena himself will address the boos and state that we have the right to our voice our feelings – as if that’s good enough to solve the issue of this awful booking. John Cena is placed in the shoes of the almighty babyface and is plotted against a conga line of various heels while WWE expects us to root for him. John Cena is not a babyface, he’s a weird transcendence or mutation of a character that’s hard to define.
Let’s go back to 1994 where Hulk Hogan joined WCW, a move that would solidify the promotion’s stance as a serious competitor against WWE. It sounded nice on paper but keep in mind that Hulkmania was reaching a 10 year anniversary at this point and the act was getting stale. What did WCW do to remedy this? They did the unthinkable – they turned Hulk Hogan heel and a lot of people found this to be captivating television. So that would be the inevitable method to fixing John Cena’s stale character right? Just turn him heel. Pretty much all wrestlers have gone through it: Hogan, Savage, Austin, Rock, Bret, Shawn etc. and you’re not entirely wrong or misguided for thinking that would be the best option but something about John Cena turning heel just doesn’t seem to work for me.
Let’s imagine it – John Cena turns heel. He kicks Dean Ambrose in the balls, joins the Authority, wears black jorts and cap and throws acid some kids in the face. Sounds great, eh? Well, you’ve now created a massive black hole in terms of merchandise and public relations. John Cena is extremely vital in terms of attracting younger audiences and let’s not forget his importance in terms of the Make a Wish foundation. Not only is he the most popular wrestler for Make a Wish but he’s the most popular figure for Make a Wish, like…in history. “Well, he’d be a great heel” Would he? We’ve effectively taken away everything that we hate about Cena in this process. We’ve ripped away the pandering merchandise, the condescending poop jokes and the stale, vanilla character. When Hogan turned heel in the 90’s he managed to shed his stale, rusty character and skyrocketed in terms of popularity due to the success of the nWo. The New World Order were the cool guys that a lot of older audiences were drawn to; just look at the countless number of nWo shirts at WCW events. Would the same thing happen for Cena? It could be a possibility. Yes, a change would be nice but I can also see why WWE are hesitant to pull the trigger because for as much as we bitch, Cena still rakes in a lot of money. If he dwindles in popularity, perhaps we’ll see a change but I don’t see that happening in the future.
I’ve gone back and forth, haven’t I? Blasting John Cena while stomping on any chance of a heel turn. You’re right to be kind of confused because this is a confusing predicament. The fact that WWE doesn’t want to turn Cena heel isn’t what upsets me, it’s the fucking laziness of trying to find any other method to solve this issue. And believe me, this is a big issue. Austin, Bret, Shawn or Rock never had this problem and it perturbs me how WWE don’t seem to want to deal with it whatsoever. All things considering, I’m going to try and delineate a theory to solve the issue and try to placate both parties. Would it work? I’unno but it’s better than not doing anything about it and giving him another “Will he overcome the odds?” scenario.
See you on the other side.
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