The obvious thing to say is that it’s “shocking that John Cena turned heel on Saturday night” and it would be, if that was what actually happened.
Now, of course, I’m not trying to “um, actually” Cena turning heel. That definitely happened. But did he do it on Saturday? That’s something I’m less certain of. As a Cena expert certified by the man himself, to me, one of the most important things to understand about him as a performer is his focus on “earning” something as opposed to “deserving” it. It may seem like simple semantics, but the difference between the two is the foundational ethos of his “character”.
And the second he arrived at the Royal Rumble press conference to announce that he would be entering the Elimination Chamber without qualifying, he broke a covenant.
Not with the kids he does the Make-A-Wish visits with or even the “boys (and girls) in the back,” but the general audience. Cena’s character, for all of its flaws in presentation, was one that pretty much always “earned” his place in whatever situation he was put into, no matter how convoluted the reason. Which was not the case with nearly every other standard bearer of the previous regime.
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Hulk Hogan was, unsurprisingly, the king dick of this particular shit mountain. While his backstage machinations defined an entire generation of wrestling (and a subsequent era of shoot interviews,) even on-screen, Hogan was pretty much always throwing himself into things based entirely on vibes. It’s not just the clusterfuck that ended WrestleMania IX — where Hogan helped his “friend” Bret Hart (a change in relationship status that Hart unaware of and which was mentioned in passing just before the latter’s match with Yokozuna) by essentially stealing his title and refusing to give it back (or “pass the torch”, as had been the tradition in the business since time immemorial) — but pretty much every major title change or inciting event for a storyline that happened in the entirety of his first run at the top of the WWF.
In fact, I made a poster about it:
Friends Like U, Brother PLAIN AND SIMPLE Poster – Etsy
Now, a wise man once said, “Personal issues draw money”. So it’s not exactly fair to act like it’s surprising or sinister that nearly every WrestleMania main event of the first nine would involve the dissolution of a Hogan friendship or professional animosity while Hogan was perma-champion. But, the fact that this practice continued after he lost the title between WrestleManias III and IV speaks to how much of Hogan’s position at the top of the card was a result of him being Poochie with staying power.
Some of this was because of the then-WWF’s complete lack of a sport-adjacent incentive and promotion structure, which is a fancy way of saying title matches were just kind of given out for no real reason most of the time. Since titles very rarely changed hands unless someone actually mattered/was getting a real push, there was no need to treat a title match (even for the WWF title) as anything other than another match that just so happened to have a championship on the line1.
Most of it, though, was a result of the “Hogan Must Pose” philosophy of booking, wherein the whole fucking point of the entire goddamned show was to end with Hogan posing while the crowd ‘literally’ hung from the rafters. Which led to things like Hogan calling his shot at the 1991 Rumble while simultaneously challenging Sgt. Slaughter to a title match at WrestleMania VII2, a move that, in retrospect is maybe the most insane on-camera flex of backstage stroke in the history of the company by anyone not named McMahon.
Up, at least, until Vince’s next great backstage politicker major star, Shawn Michaels3 where he literally forfeited the WORLD TITLE instead of dropping it to Bret Hart because he wasn’t feeling it. While he took a slightly less direct approach than Hogan did in terms of booking himself into things on TV, he more often than not found ways to get out of doing that which he wasn’t totally into. Between the Kliq’s Hogan-esque booking power and Vince’s weird (read: psychosexual) infatuation with Michaels, the Hogan and Michaels runs at top were nearly identical in terms of how the character’s influence on what was happening extended way beyond their physical dominance and veered into cults of personality that even the Powers That Be (at least on screen) fell victim to.
This kind of tomfuckery would lead to random title changes and reigns, as well as a general feeling of chaos percolating just beneath the surface of what we were watching on TV. And not in an “anything can happen,” but rather, “is anyone steering this ship?” kind of way. To the point where it felt like some of the disorder was intentional on the part of Vince to create a rats in a barrel situation so that he could police the locker room by proxy. It would also inform the next 15 years or so of WWE booking.
Seemingly learning his lesson from the Smile-loss, the Screwjob and Shawn’s near-refusal to put over Austin at WrestleMania XIV, Vince became God and the Machine on screen (as well as, obviously, backstage). Instead of taking dictation from his stars, he became a dictator of the highest order, fundamentally shaping the world around him to feed into his desires and achieve his goals. With this, the entire universe that the WWE inhabits became a playground for its primary antagonist.
Instead of having to have people earn title matches or opportunities to move up the card through the natural progression of building characters to intersect with others in ways that help them both grow with the audience, Mr. McMahon could simply make shit happen without any pretense of having to justify it beyond “Because I said so!”. And from both a creative and character standpoint, this actually worked to fill in things like continuity holes and expository gaps much easier than sad music videos and vague explanations of why planned title matches or seemingly inevitable championship pushes had been abruptly cancelled.
Fans got tired of this, eventually, though. There’s only so many dumb or depraved things the rich and powerful can do and continue to get away with it, at least if there’s incentives to prevent diminishing returns or actual consequences to backlash from viewers (or, perhaps, voters). Which is why Vince, who had to that point been the arbiter of who and what was going to be successful in his company, ended up as a boy standing in front of other boys, asking them to beat each other up:
It was in the early days of this regime that John Cena emerged. First as a Ruthless Aggressor, then a Doctor and finally as the flagship babyface for the company’s PG era. The run, by and large, existed without most of the McMahon accoutrement of the Attitude Era’s Succession-style storylines where Clan McMahon superseded even Hulk Hogan on the Poochie scale, at least until the Authority became the chief antagonists/storyline propellant in the summer of 2013.
In that interregnum, Cena’s mantra — Hustle, Loyalty and Respect — became the guiding ethos for his character and, by extension of him being the primary babyface for much the preceding decade, the primary booking philosophy for the company. Whether it was a mid-or-World title opportunity, a seemingly insurmountable opponent he needed to overcome or gimmick match he needed to survive, Cena’s character gained strength through hard work and support through his dedication to his fans and his craft, which eventually gained him the reverence of even his most vocal “haters”.
Even things like his appearance as number 30 in the 2008 Royal Rumble made sense4 as he had been the champion — not just any champion, but by any measure one of the most successful champions in the history of the title to that point — and had that run ended so abruptly (with a torn pec in a match with Kennedy at the go-home show before a long-awaited showdown with Randy Orton5) that this kind of favor from the whatever on high atop the thing felt like righting a wrong and not gifting an opportunity to the fortunate at the expense of those with actual needs.
And, because Vince still existed in the company, albeit in a less omnipresent manner, whenever it felt like Cena’s run at the top might become too big to fail/end, the Old Man would go out of his way to screw Cena for one reason or another. (Somewhat ironically, more often than not after an Elimination Chamber match.) Though, unlike other performers he’d clash with such as Austin, Foley, The Rock or even CM Punk, this was usually done to prevent Cena from becoming too big for his britches, as opposed to a specific hatred for the man himself.
Which, in a meta-narrative way, made sense for both Cena and McMahon, as performers and as people trying to keep interest in a company without dipping directly back into the well that had been poisoned by so much shit being dropped into it for the sake of Vince wanting to prove his dominance over the men, women and deities he felt beneath him. Cena got put into what was “actually” his place (or at least Vince’s perception of where he belonged), not pushed down to a lower spot than made sense for him from a narrative perspective6*.
Because of this “agreement” — or at least tacit understanding — Cena never really asked to be or assumed that he belonged at the top, at least on screen. While there’s seemingly a case to be made that Cena had his hand in many sinister soups backstage, in front of the cameras, Cena’s matches and title reigns were often exceedingly generous to his fellow performers and the company itself. Cena’s dominance in booking meant that his matches always meant something, even in an era when titles were constantly changing.
Performers like Edge, CM Punk and Randy Orton all beat Cena for titles at the apex of his powers, and for those who don’t remember, it was Cena’s decision to do the job for Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam (after hand picking him to be his opponent in the first place) that was the inciting incident for the entire Yes movement. The next year, he was on losing end of the all-time greatest beat down against Brock Lesnar, who then went off on what might be the single most-dominant run in wrestling history over the next year, AND THEN single-handedly resurrected the value of the United States title with his Open Challenge the following year. Finally, in his most recent phase with the company, Cena against passed the torch to multiple people (including, like, Austin fucking Theory) by losing every match throughout the last half decade and even wrestled inside of his own mind to get over the late Bray Wyatt.
That is also, almost certainly, why we find ourselves here and now (both in and out of kayfabe7). Cena, the man who has given so much to the company, has been forced to watch as it reached unprecedented levels of popularity and cultural relevance. All on the back of what he believes to be his hard work in building the company back up after it was left for dead following the Attitude Era.
It’s also why he feels entitled now in a way that he simply never has, and never once even hinted at even when he was tearing someone like Roman Reigns down to be built back up. Instead of hustle, loyalty and respect, Cena has decided to take the shortcut to the life he believes he deserves as the officially greatest of all time, higher on the mountaintop than Hogan, Michaels or even Vince himself. Whether or not that’s fair, or whether or not he actually belongs is irrelevant to John at this point.
His only goal is to get what he believes he has coming to him, and he’s willing to work for whatever and with whomever will allow him to achieve it. Although it’s a song sounds eerily similar to the one we’re used to hearing, it’s clear that while the beats are largely the same, the meaning has changed completely.
- To wit:
Now, contextually, many of these performers were “important” in the grand scheme of the WWF’s ‘golden era’* (which is how the 80s/Hogan era is referred to in kayfabe now) but Adrian Adonishad had as many WWF/E World title matches against Hogan in one reign as Jeff Jarrett (13) had in his entire career in the WWE. Because of the increased cadence of title changes, any match could potentially lead to a title change, especially when the “rematch clause” was the primary means of WWE matchmaking between 2008-2018. ↩︎ - Almost single handedly creating the stipulation that would make the Rumble what it is today, based entirely on the ROI for investing in Hulkamania ↩︎
- While we love Bret Hart in the Palace of Wisdom, his ascension to the WWE throne was basically a Death Cab for Cutie song, and he had nothing resembling the stroke of those who came before or after, and, in fact, had his entire endgame storyline built around that idea specifically (also, like, the fucking Screwjob) ↩︎
- Especially when compared to Cody just appearing at No. 30 in the 2023 Rumble ↩︎
- Which, as an Orton fan, ended up being a profound blessing in disguise, allowing Orton to have a reign without the specter of Cena coming back to the title the second Vince got bored and one of the better random PPVs in WWE history, where Triple H worked three excellent title matches (including two against Orton) in the same night. ↩︎
- As was the case with, say, Austin, who based on his overness and “power levels” should basically always have been world champion during his run at the top, only to be constantly thwarted/screwed over by the Big Bad on the show. Cena getting knocked down by Vince was done to set him on different paths, while intervention in Austin’s runs was done almost exclusively to boost the feud between them by constantly forcing Austin to climb the same way back up mountain while Vince triggered mudslides and avalanches to try to punish Austin for making the attempt in the first place. ↩︎
- Meaning both as the “reason” they thought it was an interesting direction to go in and what will be used to justify the turn, presumably, if it ever reaches the point where he feels like he should or needs to explain “Why, John, Why?!” ↩︎
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