The hardest part of learning to be a star in the wrestling business is to accept that sometimes it’s best, for all parties, if you lose. All of these performers, be it male or female, were raised with a sporting background. In sports, even if your sport is body building, your goal is to be the best. To be better than the man or woman standing next to you. Be at the top of your game. So now, after dedicating all these years to winning, you’re supposed to lose?
As Fast Eddie told Vince… “And you are going to dump. You are going to lose something fierce. You’ll ask for the spot and the break. It’ll be humiliating. This is beautiful.” The art of the hustle. The REAL hustle, not the one that John Cena preaches. This is the art that HHH and the McMahon family preaches.
The best wrestlers of all time have been the wrestlers that can lose in the most glorious fashion. It’s not even hard to think of an example. Take the Undertaker. He had the longest, never to be repeated, WrestleMania win streak of all time. 21-0. Twenty-one wins versus Zero losses! Let’s not bother picking the record apart, let’s just look at the entirety of it. For 21 years, the Undertaker was victorious and was the star of his match on the biggest night of the year, in his profession. What We’ll remember the most is not the 21 wins, it will be the ONE loss two years ago against Brock Lesnar.
The saying that is used in the wrestling world is, “You go out on your back.” If you’re lucky enough to have your career mean anything in the wrestling business, the way you pay the sport / industry back is to “pay it forward” to the next generation. Brock Lesnar will use that win until it is time for him to “pay it forward.”
John Cena is nowhere near retirement but he is the Face of the WWE. His job is secure. In the upcoming years, he’ll have an epic run for this 16th and 17th WHC run, which will push him past Ric Flair. The mission to “conquer” the WWE is no longer his goal. Now it’s all about “ruling.” If we’ve learned anything from history (and Game of Thrones), it is much different to Conquer than to Rule.
Now that John Cena is sitting on the Iron Throne of the WWE, he’s tasked with elevating his fellow performer. In the last few years, he’s actually done a very admirable job at doing this. He’s openly challenged the guys backstage and has helped raise the profiles of Bray Wyatt, Dolph Ziggler and most notably Daniel Bryan. But with his recent run with Kevin Owens, has he gone too far?
This is not a knock on KO. After what I saw Owens do to / with Cena at Elimination Chamber, he’s exceeded and surpassed all expectations. He’s stomped on the idea that he’s BamBam 2.0 and has written his name on a ticket to possibly headline WrestleMania in 2-4 years. That’s how good he is AND a testament to how well Cena put him over.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Cena has been “selling” too much. It was great that he helped friend and worthy struggling star Daniel Bryan. But then he kept putting over more and more guys. Sure, he’d eventually get the decisive victory but there was a lot of losing going on up until then. His biggest sell job was putting over Brock Lesnar. Nothing against the BEAST but look at what’s made him the number one draw this past year, he broke Undertaker’s WM streak and totally demolished John Cena numerous times.
With Lesnar and Bryan, I can understand the sell. But over the past few years, and especially since he won the U.S. Championship title, he’s been putting over every Tom, Dick and Harry on the roster. We’re only in June, and I can see this going on through SummerSlam. What I do not see is another WrestleMania season in which Cena is sitting on the sidelines and not having a spot in one of the main event matches with no end in sight. While putting over deserving mid-carders is a noble occupation, if Cena continues to be the U.S. Champ, he’ll just be seen as a stepping stone for every new wrestler that comes up from NXT. To have a chance at one of the top matches next year, he’ll need to have another long feud similar to the one he had with Rusev by WM32. I’d say, this feud with Kevin Owens would be perfect but we can see that run ending with a Cena victory at Money in the Bank.
Might it be that Kevin Owens out performed expectations? After their feud is over, where do both go? Cena back to his weekly Cena Open? Kevin Owens dropping back down to NXT just to give up the title so he can be free to return to the main roster?
I’d never leave you all without any solutions. Here’s what Cena does. He must double down on the losing and the putting over of the new crop of Superstars. The WWE must have a big reward for Cena but their main event card looks to be filled through next year’s WrestleMania. As his reward, and after WM32, 2016 will be the Year of John Cena! Two-thousand-16 to correlate with his 16th run at being the WHC. Early bets are that Reigns will walk away from WM32 as the WHC and maybe a bit of a heel. It would fit and be time for Super Cena to swoop in and save the WWE and take over as the all time winningest World Heavyweight Champion.
I may never join in with all the cheering kids screaming, “Let’s go CE-NA!” But I hold the right to silently stand nodding with respect for a man who’s learned what it means to be a true Legend and the Face of the WWE.
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