John Cena's latest WWE run is a "parody," claims wrestling veteran

If one were to name the most influential WWE Superstar of all time, John Cena would almost certainly be part of that conversation, according to a vast majority of the fanbase.

For obvious reasons, when the 16-time World Champion resurfaces on television, viewers are excited at the thought of what he will be up to at this stage of his career. His latest run beginning in September, though, was slammed by prolific wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez.

On a recent edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez claimed that John Cena is now a parody of himself, doing all his greatest hits from when he was a full-time wrestler, only bigger. The veteran took the Five Knuckle Shuffle Cena did in the closing moments of his tag match at WWE Fastlane as an example.

"I was watching this match and man, this John Cena, it's like he's basically like a parody of himself now. Everything he does is his old John Cena stuff, but he has to do it like bigger than ever. So he gets ready for the Five Knuckle Shuffle and he just gets the eyes, it's almost like a guy pretending to be John Cena. But man, these people eat it up," Alvarez stated.

Dave Meltzer defended John Cena, though, saying that the latter has earned his place and the fans are okay with what they get. Meltzer even called the tag match exactly what it needed to be, albeit not anything special.

Triple H is grateful for John Cena's contributions to WWE

Triple H and John Cena are no strangers from an in-ring standpoint. The two even headlined a WrestleMania in 2006, at the peak of Cena's early main event run. During the Fastlane post-show press conference, The Game spoke highly of the 16-time World Champion:

"But I do recognize what John is talking about when he says he doesn't know how long he has. He's at an age [where] he's doing a lot of other things. I would just say this to everybody out there, revel in it. Because the appreciation level that John should get is off the charts."