John Cena has gained a lot of respect from people who were not fond of him for quite some time. This is perhaps because of his willingness to step away from the long-term main event scene, his run last year with the United States Championship and his run that included constantly putting newer top stars over.
The prior criticism of Cena was that he would constantly go over even in matches where his opponent would have benefited far more from the win. However, not only has he stepped away from the long term main event scene, but he has also been having Match Of The Year candidates (such as the two matches with AJ Styles). Perhaps this is Cena giving back to the company.
Cena is now clearly transitioning into a different role. His schedule has considerably toned down, and he has a lot more projects going outside the WWE, whether it is acting gigs, hosting award shows, or anything else. In fact, No Mercy will be Cena’s first pay-per-view main event since Summerslam 2014. He will also be making history as he will officially be overtaking The Undertaker and Triple H as having main evented the most number of PPVs in WWE history.
On non-PPVs especially, Cena has taken losses, but a clean loss is a rare phenomenon. His last loss on a non-PPV was after Money In The Bank when he lost to Seth Rollins. However, that was due to a distraction by The Club.
Reddit user OriginalCheezIt noted that John Cena's pinfall loss to Dean Ambrose on tonight's SmackDown was his first clean pinfall or submission loss on RAW or SmackDown in nearly 7 years. The last time he lost clean on either show via pinfall or submission was on October 19, 2009, in a match against Triple H on RAW.
This just goes to show the shift in roles that Cena has. And it isn’t a bad thing. He has put over the newer stars who are going to be there full-time for longer than he will. It must be noted that it is highly unlikely he will win his 16th World Championship at No Mercy, as he will be taking a hiatus for a few months to film the second season of American Grit.
Do you like Cena’s new role on the roster?
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