John Cena: The Champ Is Here… Again.

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It is well known that John Cena is one of the most “polarizing” superstars in the WWE. Every fan tends to either love him or hate him. While he may not be as interesting as he used to be – he’s long since given up his attitude filled rapper persona and moved on to be pretty much the ultimate Face – he is still really exciting. He is the company’s go-to man and he won’t be going anywhere for a long time.

I have always liked John Cena. Presently, his mantra of “Hustle, Loyalty, Respect” is something I can really get behind, and outside of character, his perseverance, hard work, and dedication to the company is extremely admirable. John seems to be a fantastic guy, both on the screen and off. While a lot of folks in the internet community complain about his limited moveset, that’s not so much a problem with Cena as it is with WWE as a whole. Every superstar is plagued by the same “5 moves of doom” issue right now. I feel like that’s an issue more with creative than anything.

The problem with Cena right now is that WWE is not doing much with him that is actually interesting. He has proven that he’s an amazing athlete with a personality that can capture the crowd. However, WWE is making him stale. I can’t remember the last time I saw him lose a match or struggle with a feud, although his segment with Bray Wyatt had a good psychological aspect to it. I ultimately like to see Cena win, but the way it happens is really predictable and comes with very little struggle to him. Beating the odds and never giving up is great, but there actually needs to be odds for him to beat.

Finally, my biggest problem with how WWE is using Cena is in handling the championship. I’m not saying that he doesn’t earn his championship wins with his hard work and dedication, but I’m not fond of how WWE simply dumps the title(s) onto him whenever there’s a complication, such as Daniel Bryan having to vacate the title. There are more interesting things they could do with it. While there needs to be a challenge for Rollins when he cashes in his MITB contract to get his big push, I unfortunately have to say that if he cashes in while Cena is the champ, the chances of him getting a title reign aren’t very high. It’s happened before, to other superstars. Cena is very willing to work with newer superstars to get them over, but the fact that WWE won’t see him lose makes it almost impossible for him to properly do so. It would be the biggest push ever if Rollins was to defeat Cena for the championship because of that, but it’s hard to think that would ever happen.

I was extremely hopeful that Money In The Bank would see the titles split, mainly because of how stale the competition for the title has been since they were unified. Seeing two men get up the ladder at the same time and end up coming down with one belt each, effectively forcing the Authority to declare the titles split, would have been an optimal result to me. A veteran such as Cena or Orton to take the Heavyweight belt, and Rollins or Cesaro to take the WWE belt. But as much as I like Cena, I am a little disappointed with how predictably it turned out.

That being said, Cena winning the title doesn’t really do anything to hurt the rising talent that surrounded him, but MITB is supposed to be the most important pay-per-view of the year, because it’s meant to give that kind of push to rising or underused superstars.

Ultimately, WWE needs to be more creative with Cena. Regardless of how frequently he wins his matches and feuds, they need to treat him in a less predictable way. And he needs to win the championship because he pursues it, not just because he’s to go-to if there’s a problem. I think there should be more diversity and maybe more rotation in who holds the championship, especially as long as the titles are merged.