John Cena: The unexplored potential that both the character and the man have

John Cena’s poster boy image has taken a beating

John Felix Anthony Cena, better known by his in-ring name John Cena, is the guy who have all looked up to once upon a time, drawn motivation and inspiration from, and learned values of life like huslte, loyalty and respect from him. He was the guy who gave his mind, body, heart and soul for the company in every show, every PPV and every tour, and this made him the poster-boy of the company, for the past 12 years.

What’s more? In my view, he’s one of the very few elite performers out there who has made a lot of impact in the social well being of others, courtesy his “be a star” and “make a wish” foundations. He’s been doing some really commendable work, both on and off the screen. For me, his promos in earlier days were a rich source of motivation. He trains hard, he prepares harder and he makes a show out of nothing. Having said all this, the only question that lingers our minds about the guy is..... how much longer?

Frankly speaking, only the writers out there and the WWE Creative know the answer to that question. The only reason he’s been recieving a lot of heat in the past couple of years is because of the staleness of his character, which has been forcibly put in by the creative, whether he likes it or not. The main problem is, Cena the character’s promos have been boring, lame-comic types, or sometimes carry a freakingly-serious tone, none of which have sat well with the mature fans, who aren’t the typical “super cena fanboys”. His sudden comebacks out of nowhere to win a match by delivering just an average Attitude Adjustment has irked the fans, to say the least.

Hell, we all know that it’s scripted, but you can atleast book and write matches which seem real, Creative! Sure, you can use him to put over promising newcomers, and use him as your poster-boy, but please don’t give us a man who “finishes” 3 opponents with a simple AA, he’s obviously better than that. Amidst all this, there are few exceptions. His match against CM Punk on Monday Night RAW in Jan 2013 was just priceless, and was arguably a Match of the Year candidate. The bull dogs, the piledrivers, the way the two of them carried each other was outright appreciable.

Although there have been a lot of these sort of matches throughout his career, the main thing that seems to over-shadow these terrific efforts are the way he is booked subsequently. Ironically, after winning the match against Punk and qualifying to face The Rock at Wrestlemania XXIX, his promos were at an all time low. If you recollect, it wasn’t clear if he was kidding, or serious And another important question that needs to be answered soon is how can the situation be improved?

Frankly, the lame bookings have to stop. Give the guy some freedom, some liberty to work things out in his style, and the impact maybe entirely different! There were situations in the recent past that have suggested that the fans want something more than Cena, somebody who can wrestle better, an epitome of which is the flying goat, Daniel Bryan. He was (is) so popular with the fans that his absense in the ring for one night can lead to endless chants asking for him. So the creative really needs to learn that there are other guys in the roster who have the potential of becoming the next face of the company.

Where does this lead us? If we speculate and if the creative has actually considered a passing-of-torch moment for these two, we might even have a Cena heel-turn! Now how awesome would that be? I, for one feel that apart from being a wonderful poster boy, he has the potential to be the one of the best heels out there. And moreover, heels get booed by the fans, and he’s already beeing booed out of the arena. This can certainly be used as an advantage if he turns heel .

I don’t know if I’ve been too skeptical about the character Cena throughout or just a bully, but I, like many others out there, want some change. I want to extract more from Cena- the guy. Let’s hope the creative get a little realistic and do what is needed.