The Rock has returned to the WWE and picked a fight with John Cena. Rock has cut promos on Cena trashing everything from his look, his raps, and his wrestling. The idea is to give Cena the rub but after four weeks one has to wonder if this grand plan is blowing up in the WWE’s face.

I am no John Cena fan but I am starting to feel a little sorry for the guy. Here is a guy that has struggled over the last several years to appeal as a babyface to the mass WWE audience. As the top WWE babyface, Cena was often booed out of the building by vocal Cena haters for most of the last three years. Yet he did the unthinkable a few months back by turning “Cena Sucks” into a rallying cry and finally won the respect of his haters after his feud with Nexus.

Unfortunately all of that hard work was rewarded by inviting The Rock back to RAW only to have The Rock remind Cena haters as to every reason why they hated Cena in the first place. Over the course of a month, two interviews, and a couple of fun tweets, The Rock has now let everyone know just how lame John Cena and his character are and why you had every right to boo him in the first place.

I’ll give him credit as John Cena was up for the challenge. Cena and the WWE couldn’t stop talking about these great responses that John Cena would have to The Rock’s promos. The only problem here is that Cena’s responses sounded like something you’d hear from a boy in elementary school trying to verbally spar with the cool kid in high school. It didn’t take long for the crowd to pick up on it and in just a matter of five weeks John Cena has gone from the top WWE babyface to a truly pathetic figure playing to an audience that can’t stand him.

It all came to a head this past Monday after a week of the WWE heavily pushing Cena’s response to The Rock’s awesome promo via satellite. Cena’s “hip hop” response sounded more like a poem and bombed badly. The live crowd saw through it and Cena stood there in the middle of the ring looking more clueless than Courtney Love at the Pamela Anderson roast. It was at that moment where I started to think that the WWE has really screwed John Cena.

I get it. The idea of bringing The Rock in to feud with Cena is that he would give Cena the rub of arguably one of the five most popular WWE superstars in pro wrestling history. The predictable wrestling ending here is The Rock helping Cena beat The Miz ala Tyson and Austin at WrestleMania XIV with The Rock finally endorsing Cena in the end. Unfortunately for the WWE, The Rock has done such a great job of turning the entire WWE Universe against John Cena that he would look just as lame as Cena at this point in endorsing the former WWE champion.

You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight and Cena has brought a pocket knife to a war with The Rock. I blame the WWE writers or whoever let Cena walk out there with this crap. What the WWE should have done is paid big bucks to an established rapper to help Cena deliver more creative promos in a way that would actually win him some credibility with the audience. My hunch is that there is nobody writing for the WWE today that has a clue about rap in 2011…just a hunch.

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Additionally, Cena has spent so much time dueling with The Rock that The Miz and the WWE title look like a complete afterthought at this point. This is like if Jon Bones Jones was talking trash on another UFC fighter in the weeks leading to his fight with light heavyweight champion Shogun Rua and barely mentioning the champ. The only interest anyone has in seeing Cena vs. The Miz at WrestleMania at this point is what happens with The Rock and Cena. Cena vs. The Miz is almost like the long wrestling rest hold whereas The Rock vs. Cena is the high spot and while that may be good for one night, it isn’t good for the long term.

Business is up all across the board for the WWE and the RAW ratings have been fantastic. There is more interest in this year’s WrestleMania than any other WrestleMania in the last seven years. But at the end of the day I think that the WWE has done more damage long term to their product than they realize. The short term benefits will linger for a few weeks but how many fans are really staying tuned to watch John Cena and The Miz?

There is really only one way to get out of this and I don’t think that the WWE has the guts to do it. Cena needs to lay out The Rock at WrestleMania and do a double turn with The Miz going babyface and Cena the heel. I think WWE fans can actually sympathize a little bit with The Miz being disrespected as world champion and could get behind him as a babyface vs. Cena. Cena laying out The Rock would earn him some credibility back after being pushed around for the last few weeks by the Great One and could use this frustration as fuel for a heck of a heel run.

So what the WWE has at this point is one wrestler who has skyrocketed to become the most popular star in the company who won’t even be around after WrestleMania 27, a top babyface that has been dressed down and exposed as being the most uncool wrestler in the WWE, and a world champion that is a complete afterthought. Good luck on those Miz vs. Cena post-WrestleMania rematches.

The John Cena Experience

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The Rock: The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment

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Eric G. Eric is the owner and editor-in-chief of the Camel Clutch Blog. Eric has worked in the pro wrestling industry since 1995 as a ring announcer in ECW and a commentator/host on television, PPV, and home video. Eric also hosted Pro Wrestling Radio on terrestrial radio from 1998-2009. Check out some of Eric's work on his IMDB bio and Wikipedia. Eric has an MBA from Temple University's Fox School of Business. More Posts - Website Follow Me:

