The Devil’s Due: John Cena and You

Time to let it go already. It is no longer “cool”. More and more, people are getting tired of the live WWE crowds chanting “Cena sucks!” the problem is, not enough people are tired of it yet.

John Cena pretty much rocketed to the top of the WWE after being brought up from OVW in June of 2002, immediately challenging Kurt Angle after an abbreviated confrontation that saw Cena almost claim a victory over “your Olympic hero”. His first short run as a company babyface was soon supplanted by his rapping, Vanilla Ice-style beat-dropper who got over even as a heel by cutting his promos as rhyming beats a la 8-Mile. This really got him over with the crowd until he decided to drop the rhymes when some “genius” in Creative decided to script Cena’s promos. This of course took the “free” out of his freestyling. This was also John’s first and last turn as heel in WWE. By the end of 2003 he would once again become a fan favorite “babyface” when he joined Kurt Angle’s team at Survivor Series.

Throughout his WWE career, he has held numerous titles, including the tag belts, the U.S. Title, the World Heavyweight Title, the WWE Title, and the current incarnation of World Wrestling Entertainment’s premiere belt, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt. He has been a very successful wrestler for WWE financially: His merchandise has sat on top of all merchandise sales for just about a decade now, and isn’t showing signs of significantly slowing any time soon. But to quote Harvey Dent: “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain”, and in some circles, that’s what has happened to Cena.

Cena’s entrance music is galvanizing and arguably the most crowd noise-inducing of any entrance music on a consistant week-to-week basis. The crowds at live events literally split into 2 distinct chants: “Let’s Go Cena” and “Cena Sucks!” Most of the pro chants emanate from the children and women in the crowd, while the anti-Cena sentiment emanates from teen and adult males. The pattern is quite obvious. The kids like him because he is their Superman, their hero, the one who will vanquish the bad guys. I’ve never understood what women find appealing in general, never mind what they see in John Cena. But why to the teen and adult males hate him so much?

Part of the problem is that Cena has been presented as that Superman, and his comebacks and recoveries from beatdowns stretch believability and reality. He’s been accused of not being able to actually wrestle, possessing only “five moves of doom” while at the same time ignoring the similar types of conservative movements in other “WWE Entertainers” such as Randy Orton, Dolph Ziggler, etc. After that, there are a great majority of others who I view as “sheeple”, following those they think are the cool kids and only chanting negative sentiment to hopefully project that same sense of cool they see in others.

This columnist has in the past derided Cena and his supposed limited number of in-ring moves, his apparent ability to overcome the odds all the time and wind up in the title picture over others I had figured at that time might have been more deserving of title shots. I am so over bashing Cena that at this point in time I look upon those who sneer as “uncool”.

If you take a look at the bigger picture from the last few years, John Cena has been there for WWE as a go-to in event 0f injuries, firings and the like. He’s a real company man, and that kind of loyalty behind the scenes out of the limelight of storylines is harder to find every week. In addition to that, he has actually done a great deal to work with younger, newer, and/or up-and-coming talent to get them over, or at least help. Two perfect examples are CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. John Cena has been “jobbing” to newer WWE talent for quite some time, yet his detractors seem to miss this. He has even lost to Rusev most recently and faces the “Hero of Russia” at WrestleMania. You can rest assured Cena won’t wind up with the U.S. title after that match.

Time to let it go fans: Time to give Cena his due and stop with the boos. He has done more for the charity Make A Wish than practically any other crity out there. He has worked to put over new talent. He has supported your troops, and pays tribute to them practically every time he makes his entrance. He has earned and deserves your respect. Besides, chanting “Cena sucks!” is really no longer the hip, cool thing to do It’s what people who can’t think for themselves docause others are doing it. I suppose it’s easier nowadays than thinking for yourself.

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