John Cena Sucks

Now let me take you on a little journey... a journey to the past of WWE.

Remember guys like Hacksaw Jim Dugan?

Did anybody ever hear him ever get a boo?

He was a babyface and people loved him. There was no split crowd. When he gave out his Ho-oo, everybody repeated it. When he started the USA chants, the whole crowd - even outside the US - was chanting with him.

When he was up against an anti-American wrestler, there was no chance in hell you'd ever hear anybody chanting anything against Dugan.

Fast forward to Wrestlemania 31... John Cena vs. Rusev.

Rusev - an anti-American Bulgarian Brute, the hero to the Russian federation and a guy constantly humiliating the crowd... and people cheered for him. Just imagine, how much the crowd must hate Cena to support Rusev.

And it wasn't the first time. The crowd even supported Rusev against Roman Reigns at Royal Rumble, because they wanted anybody to win, except Roman! But that's something I'll come back in another blog, when I'll cover the Roman boo-ers. Now it's the Cena Suck-ers.

The crowd has been pretty much against Cena for a long time. Never have a even imagined a crowd getting so rough against a WWE babyface as was the case of the fight between Rob van Dam and John Cena. I mean, really, "Die, Cena, die!" chants, and they weren’t the worst the crowd threw at him.

There are several questions that must be asked:

a) Why does John Cena suck?

b) Why is WWE showing a guy the Universe hates down their throats?

c) Why isn't this rage the fans have with the top face of the company causing any damage to WWE?

d) How does John Cena handle it?

So does John Cena suck and if so, why?

Pure and simple - he doesn't! He's a cartoon like character. A wanna be white rapper, a wanna be real hero in a kayfabe sport with results known in advance, a wannabe people's choice that people hate,... He's everything people simply love to hate.

This would be a clear case to make him a heel - but that wouldn't work then, would it?

I mean, you're supposed to hate heels and love faces, but ever since Steve Austin came to the scene, everything we knew about wrestling in the late seventies, eighties and up to mid nineties changed.

It's like Superstar Billy Graham being a heel champion with a long run. Before him, champions were always good guys, fair, sporting... and if a heel got the belt it was just to drop it soon to the next all American boy.

Or like Jesse "The Body" Ventura on the mic. Before him commentators were cheering for faces and never defended any cheating of the heels... nor were they ever exposing the cheating of the faces... Jesse turned that around and that opened the door also to the legendary commentary team of Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Henan (a face and heel commentators).

And if the attitude era was the time that made it possible to cheer for foul mouth beer guzzling bad ass that should have been a middle finger sticking to your face heel, then the post attitude are is the time of booing the top faces the company is forcing upon the crowd - with Cena being a perfect example of it.

Yes, there are still typical faces and typical heels... Daniel Bryan is a typical face... light-hearted, cheered upon, with a - Yes - very positive chant on his side... and Bad News Barret a typical heel, who hates everybody and will bull-hammer his way through a row of pregnant women to get what he wants.

But there are now faces like Cena - and it's not a recent thing, since it's been going on for years - that the crowd just loves to hate. But not everybody. Some still like the old face image, which causes crowd battles of "Let's go Cena!" - "Cena sucks!" chants. And that is obviously selling tickets, as the crowd seems to be willing to show in person, how much they like or hate Cena and go to the live shows.

And that's what is the most important atribute of any WWE star that the company is looking for - drawing in the crowd.

So do the fans hate Cena because he can't wrestle?

He can, but he's not as good at it as the many titles he held should reflect.

But no, it's not that.

Fans hate Cena, because they still haven't gotten the satisfaction of either getting under his skin (he won't show it) or in succeeding in WWE trying to demote Cena.

This is also what got the reaction to Rusev's statement that Cena is not worthy of a US title shot at Wrestlemania. People loved hearing somebody denying Cena.

There should be more such moments, as I think the crowd would love it, would eat it up!

Just imagine, Cena being a GM of Raw, with - let's say - Ryback coming out there, saying: you can't do this, can't you hear the people against you... It's not your time, it's my time.

And both of them going at it - but ending in a friendly way with a handshake of respect or something.

I think the Universe would really appreciate popular faces coming out telling Cena, he should respect the crowd more and stand down (naturally part of keyfabe) with having a battle to shut Cena up in the name of the people.

But will the WWE do anything about Cena being booed? Probably not. There is no competition.

If there were other promotions that one could turn the channel and watch instead of WWE, I guess they'd have to do something about it - not to lose fans. Now it's basically just the other way around. By not giving the fans what they want - a raging Cena telling everybody to shut up, or pulling him off the show - they are making John an even bigger draw!

And, despite how some people say, Cena's no good on the mic, he's doing a good job of it. Does it bother him? I guess it does, or at least it has. I mean, nobody really wants people hating him. But if you put yourself in a role of a heel trying to collect heat, you expect it.

He's letting the crowd have its moments and is not lashing out on them.

Cena is in a role of a babyface getting crowd heat, which is really a quite unusual situation, but it has happened before - remember the crowd supporting Sid Justice after Royal Rumble 1993, when Hogan pulled him out of the ring?

But never has something like this been going on for so long, as "John Cena sucks" chants.

So it's a new formula in an old game. A new way to handle the masses, as I'm sure nobody can be that deaf not to hear the Universe. But to do something about it, to try and change it, it would mean messing up a good thing that draws the crowd. And I think that WWE is too skilled at crowd manipulation not to realize that.

Still, I think Roman Reigns took them off guard, but they will probably do the same with him, as I think they did realize this is the way to go. So I don't think it was an accident that Roman showed a fan out of the way... they made his through the crowd entrance so many times, they should have expected it, so they did - and the showing was part of keyfabe. But more on that another time.

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