Is John Cena The Greatest WWE Champion Of All Time?

Let’s really talk about this for awhile. Let’s really take a good hard look at this argument. John Cena is now being advertised as the greatest WWE Champion of all time. Now, I want to make this crystal clear. This is not a who is best of all time discussion. This is a best WWE Champion of all time discussion. Before we really get into it, because this is going to get complicated. I want to state a few things to get started. First: John Cena is a fifteen time WWE Champion. Second: It is very reasonable to assume that John Cena is going to break Ric Flair’s Championship record before he retires. Whether you, I or Santa Claus appreciates it, this is more than likely going to happen. I think we can all agree on this for better or for worse. Now, I want to open by admitting that this is a tough thing to discuss, but I really want to have this line of thought put down on paper. I want to ask the question that in a lot of ways has no definitive answer. Until John Cena gets to 42 title reigns, he doesn’t have the answer to life, the universe and everything just yet. Stay with me, and maybe we can figure out what it truly means to be the greatest WWE Champion of all time. Maybe, we can conclude that it is going to be John Cena. Let’s give this a shot.

You guys watch NFL football? If you do, and you have some familiarity with these kind of arguments. In the NFL, there is this new fad called the “elite players”. In wrestling, we have the main eventers. The classic argument in this little conversation is that a player’s real value is determined by records, or more specifically, championships. Tom Brady has three Super Bowl rings, therefore he is better than anyone who has two or less. Montana is better than Brady because he has four. This logic applies only to the amount of titles they have. As I make my transition, on paper, John Cena is better than anyone not named Ric Flair in WWE history because he has more title reigns by this very specific logic. Let’s acknowledge that this logic is flawed to it’s very core. As a Patriots fan, I disagree that just because “said player” has more rings, that doesn’t make him better. The problem with this argument is it gets complicated by other players. For example, Tom Brady has three rings and Eli Manning has two. However, Manning won both of his against the Patriots. So who’s better? Who’s right?

This logic is what WWE is trying to do with John Cena. It’s too flawed because immortality cannot be measured by that. Mick Foley held the title for 93 days and he acknowledged during the Punk reign that no one cares, and the immortality of Foley goes deeper than that. Directly comparing by title reigns like that is flawed because it isn’t a measurement of success with the title, but just the number of times it was won. There is a lot of assumption there. Sammartino has held it longer than anyone and he is in this conversation, but is the value of a title reign by time held, or number of times? Because on paper, no one did more for the WWE Title than Hulk Hogan in terms of elevation, but he isn’t even close to fifteen title reigns. I’m not saying the number of reigns is useless, but it is a flawed number. In my opinion, it is the wrestling standard of wins for a major league baseball pitcher. Any real baseball fan knows that wins lie. They are an overshadow of the other stats that really show how good a pitcher was. Everyone knows Cy Young has the most wins in baseball history, but could you tell me his other numbers with clarity? The point is as a pitcher you can let up 50 runs, but if your team scores 51. You win. WWE is trying to turn Cena into the greatest WWE Champion of all time, clearly. Perhaps, they’ve succeeded, but in order to really answer this question, we have to dig beyond the wins and title reigns.

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Let’s look at this a very different way by looking at The Rock. A lot of people would say he’s the greatest of all time. To be clear, not the greatest champion of all time but the greatest of all time. I personally see him as the Muhammad Ali of pro wrestling. He made a point during the Rock/Cena feud that is really hard to argue against. The Rock said, “Never before has a man been able to say that he has walked into Wrestlemania and beat Hulk Hogan, beat Stone Cold Steve Austin and beat John Cena.” He’s got an amazing point there. The three biggest stars of the last three generations, and Rock has pinned them all, and clean at Wrestlemania. Rock made his point and made it well. However, John Cena has done something similar. Never before has anyone else, including The Rock been able to walk into Wrestlemania and cleanly beaten Triple H, beaten Shawn Michaels and beaten The Rock himself. If Cena is good enough to beat Rock, doesn’t that mean he is good enough to beat all who came before him? The Rock never beat Mr. Wrestlemania. The Rock was a great champion, but Randy Orton has more reigns than he does. Would anyone really argue that Randy Orton has more immortality within the wrestling industry to say he was a better champion than The Rock? It’s not about preference, there is too much bias. We can’t go by the numbers because they lie to us. We can’t go by word of mouth from the source in WWE because they are selling everything that happens as the most epic thing of all time. In twenty years, they will be saying something very similar about someone else.

So after going around in circles with me how do you feel? Well, I definitely think two things for sure. I think anyone trying to put the label of “Greatest of All Time” on anyone is fooling themselves because it’s impossible to make it a fact. I also think that it doesn’t really matter. We can all agree that there are certain guys who belong in the list of greatest whatever and as time goes on, the list is just going to get longer. It varies from person to person anyway. Hell, my top ten varies all the time. I think there is just an measurable standard that is reached over a career that defines someone to at least be in the conversation. I think that is the point of the quest for immortality. To just be a big name in the conversation. Like it or not, John Cena is in the conversation. So, whenever WWE tries to sell you on what they write as fact, just do what I do. Stay silent. People generally want you to agree with them, or start beef directly against that idea. Don’t do anything about it, let everyone have their opinion because at the end of the conversation, all we are really talking about is who were the ones that need to be remembered. WWE wants to immortalize John Cena. The fans obviously have other plans. There is just one thing though: I don’t care what anyone says, Tom Brady is a better Quarterback than Joe Montana.

What do you think? Comment below with your thoughts, opinions, feedback and anything else that was raised.