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Disclaimer: This article is the opinion of the author and doesn't necessarily represent Sportskeeda's views
John Cena has been the cornerstone of the WWE for a decade and a half and is virtually known as the franchise player but as we all know the last couple of years he has become a part-timer due to being more committed to Hollywood and probably has had enough of the hectic WWE schedule.
There have been rumours surrounding John Cena throughout his career that he's been responsible for burying talent like Alex Riley and Mr Kennedy but those rumours will never be known for a fact due to us not knowing what really goes on backstage. Also, rumours were running wild that the reason his ex-fiance Nikki Bella got a push in 2015 was because of him but it was made quite public that Nikki Bella had earned them on her own due to her hard work and never say die attitude.
All the controversy and rumours aside though, you cannot deny the fact that John Cena is a workaholic who puts in 100% effort at everything he does and is starting to put new talent over during the twilight of his career as is seen over the past year or so.
However, that does not make him the greatest of all time in terms of wrestling. If you are a wrestler or WWE superstar in the correct terms then you need to be the complete package to be classified as the greatest of all time and John Cena has an extremely limited moveset which some people refer to as the six moves of doom. By saying complete package I am saying that a wrestler has to be very charismatic, able to perform a plethora of wrestling moves and wow the audience with their moves, not relying on the same ones all the time as well as being hard working and putting new talent over and not burying people. John Cena has most of those qualities except the ability to not wow the audience with his limited wrestling skills and unwillingness to try different moves and improve his skill set.
Having six moves all up to me definitely doesn't qualify you as the greatest of all time when you've got wrestlers over in Japan trying out new things all the time like Kenny Omega and Hiroshi Tanahashi as well as many others. Kenny Omega and Seth Rollins and I would go as far as saying AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan, Kenta Kobashi, Bret "Hitman" Hart and Shawn Michaels are the type of people that you would consider to be more the greatest of all time because they are more well-rounded and virtually good at everything they do. Also, guys like Ric Flair and 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin are fairly well-rounded guys too but nowhere near the guys mentioned above in the moveset department.
Ric Flair himself has stated that he virtually only had about 4 Moves but he had a lot better cardio than most athletes due to wrestling for hour-long matches every night in the NWA travelling around all the territories.
The Rock and Hulk Hogan had an extremely limited moveset in terms of wrestling ability and that's probably why you could not really say they are the greatest pure superstars of all time. They relied more on their charisma kind of like what Cena does not that that is a bad thing but you've got to be able to go in the ring and perform as many different moves as you can to keep the audience engaged.
John Cena made a point about not being built for Indy wrestling back in 2017 ahead of the Royal Rumble to AJ Styles and I agree with him but not in the way that he would think. I think if he had gone out on the indie scene he would have been buried because of his limited moveset and if anything he may have been a mid-carder or at the very least jobber but he made it in the WWE because he had the look and the charisma that Vince McMahon loves and McMahon continued to build the company around Cena after Stone Cold and The Rock left. John Cena was just fortunate that Vince McMahon liked his look and work ethic otherwise he may never have got to where he is.
I think Batista was definitely the pick instead of Cena to be the face of the company but they ended up kind of sharing the workload and at times both held world championships at the same time
I am definitely not taking a knock at any of these guys or the work that they put into the business and I certainly can't knock John Cena for keeping us entertained even though he did get a bit monotonous at times and his character got very stale during the latter half but the amount of dedication he's put in is admirable. But it's just an insult almost and a complete rub to the actual people that were or are the complete package in wrestling to say like Vince McMahon has stated that John Cena is the greatest of all time. I don't think just because you win 16 world championships that necessarily makes you the greatest ever because it should be more about holding the title for as long as you possibly can rather than how many reigns you have.
But again I am not going to continue discrediting what Cena has done because he's done a lot for the business and carried it on his shoulders for well over a decade.
Please leave your comments on what you think of Cena below and thanks for reading
