The Postgame: On the cusp of “great change?”

Aside from it being poor form to not properly attribute a quote, it doesn’t really matter. It was the most precise, one-to-two sentence description of what John Cena’s eventual place in WWE lore should have been: he’s not The Rock, Stone Cold or Hulk Hogan. But he’s a big enough star to put over the performer who becomes the next iconic, breakthrough sensation. He’s not The Man, but he has enough juice to turn someone else into that. 

In some ways, Cena just might be in that pantheon anyway; he’s never sent business through the stratosphere on his own or become a true household name the way those three did. But he has put a good enough public face on WWE over the years to keep business steadily profitable for 10 years, now, and at least provide the veneer of mainstream stardom. 

With as many entertainment choices as there are today, maybe that’s as big of a star as a professional wrestler is now capable of being. Would Johnny Carson as iconic today, with millions of 18-to-49 viewers preferring the cable snark of Stewart, Colbert and Conan to the network late-night hosts? Probably not.

Insofar as one can tell, the only items on the checklist keeping Cena from being remembered as an all-time great in the real sense, and not just in the kayfabe sense, are his consistently mixed-at-best reactions for nearly his entire run and crowd fatigue. Proven money-maker years after years? Check. Crossover mainstream attention? Check, at least as much as one can be today. Consistently delivers great matches on a big stage? Classics with Shawn Michaels, CM Punk, Rob Van Dam, Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar and The Rock (at least the first one, though not even Punk could drag a good match out of The Rock in 2013) make that a big check. Reliability and someone who truly puts a good public face on pro wrestling? Few in history top him in this regard. 

Still, before this can be considered a love letter to Cena- it’s not; I don’t know if he’s ever even been one of my five favorite performers at any given time- his matches have never felt like a bigger deal than when he’s defending the title against an up-and-comer with whom the crowd has firmly planted their flag: Rob Van Dam at One Night Stand. CM Punk at Money in the Bank. Daniel Bryan at Summerslam. Not even his buyrate record-setting match against The Rock felt as monumental as those title tilts were, because in those matches Cena represented the obstacle between the stagnated status quo, and a revolution. 

In an impassioned backstage promo on last night’s Raw, Cena walked the now-commonplace line between fiction and reality, somewhere between subtly and overtly referring to the disgruntled crowds of late in describing the WWE as “on the cusp of great change,” which is obviously a claim that will always be met with great skepticism considering the subject matter. 

He proceeded by calling out the present and future of the WWE to pay attention to the statement he planned on making against Randy Orton in the night’s main event: “That statement goes to the Wyatts, to the Shield, to Antonio Cesaro or Daniel Bryan: if any of you think you have what it takes to carry the future of the WWE? Know that you will have to go through me to get it.” 

This site’s fearless leader would probably respond to that by saying, “I love shoot comments that aren’t supposed to be shoot comments.” But Cena’s still a relatively young, healthy man; he’s only three years older than Austin was when he won his first WWF title. So for those already disgruntled with a product they perceive as stagnant and deaf to their fans, the last line of that promo is a potentially harrowing truth. 

So, with Hollywood not beating his door down the way they did for Dwyane, he’s probably right: anyone who wants to be the “face of the WWE” does have to go through Cena in one manner of speaking or another. 

(Though, with as obnoxiously as they’ve made that phrase a plot point in recent months, I’m not sure I’d want the job, because maybe the fans are going to eventually reject whoever is in that spot. Maybe Bryan’s promo about preferring just to be known as “Daniel Bryan” rather than the “face of the WWE” also had more truth in it than we realized.) 

And maybe that’s how it should be, that if Bryan, Reigns or whoever else wants the job needs to clearly supplant Cena. To be the man, and all that.

Still, it feels like his career full of insanely loud, very mixed crowd reactions has still been a missed opportunity to create an entirely new wave of bona fide superstars. It feels like he was uniquely positioned to be able to really, truly be a starmaker. It feels like the special moments in which he stared at the lights as crowds lost their collective minds for RVD, Punk, Bryan should have had more come from them than they did. 

Or maybe I was right about this being as big as a wrestling star can be today, and just pulling them somewhat near his level is the best he can do.