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The Champ Is Boring"
April 5, 2006 by Derek Luciano

During this past weekend at the WWE Hall of Fame Induction ceremony, and also at WrestleMania 22, the fans certainly showed how they now feel about John Cena. John Cena won his first WWE Championship on April 2nd 2005 at WrestleMania 21 defeating JBL ending a near 300 day title run. Since then Cena has taken on Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Edge and defeating all of them except for Edge who beat him at New Years Revolution after Cena successfully defended the title in an Elimination Chamber, and Edge took his opportunity to cash his Money in the Bank contract and defeated him. That title reign lasted just three weeks as Cena regained the title at the Royal Rumble. Just recently Cena had a feud with Triple H, and just when everyone thought Cena would finally lose and be chasing the title he defeated Triple H. With all this information the fans have booed him over and over, and the question of the day is John Cena just getting boring" Let me tell you a little about John Cena on how he got to this point.

June 27th, 2002 on Smackdown! was the debut of John Cena where he took on Kurt Angle in an open challenge. I guess you can say Cena has had a successful short career so far. He took on the rap gimmick alongside his sidekick B2 in early October 2002.

After an unsuccessful run with B2, John Cena turned on his sidekick. That new face of Cena actually got him somewhere on Smackdown having feuds with Chris Benoit, Rikishi, The Undertaker, and surprisingly earning a WWE title shot against Brock Lesnar after winning a #1 contender tournament. After receiving a lot of criticism on not being a main event competitor John Cena basically got embarrassed where on April 27th 2003, Brock Lesnar squashed Cena. In the summer of 2003 John Cena got noticed where he had a memorable match against The Undertaker at Vengeance where he came just short when he hit the FU, but Undertaker kicked out, and hit the Last Ride and got the victory. Cena also competed at the No Mercy PPV event in October of 2003 where he took on Kurt Angle but also came short again.

A short time later John Cena turned face, where he won a Survivor Series elimination match teaming with Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, Hardcore Holly, and Bradshaw to form Team Angle, to take on Team Lesnar, Brock, Big Show, Matt Morgan, Nathan Jones, and A-Train. Cena and Chris Benoit were the only Survivors where Cena came up with the win, to beat the 7 foot 500 pound Big Show 1-2-3.

The baby face turn looked good for Cena, where fans loved him and cheered the Doctor of Thuganomics on where he brought his talent to WrestleMania 20 where he won the United States Championship defeating the Big Show. He went on to successfully defend that title against, Rene Dupree, Booker T, and Rob Van Dam, including beating all of them in a Fatal Four Way match at the Great American Bash in 2004. Cena would go onto lose the title, but it was vacant where he took on Booker T in a memorable Best of 5 series where Cena won in 5 matches. Just two days after he won in his hometown he was beat by the newcomer Carlio, but Cena went on to win the title again a month later.

In the new year of 2005 Cena had a new goal and that was the WWE Championship. Cena came up short at the Royal Rumble where Batista eliminated him to win the event, but Cena won another #1 contenders tournament defeating Kurt Angle at No Way Out, this time earning a shot at WrestleMania.

John Cena and JBL had one of the best feuds in WWE history. JBL had a near 1 year run as champion, and on April 2nd 2005 John Cena won his first WWE Championship, and also successfully defended is against JBL on numerous times including making him quit in an I Quit match. As I said before, since then Cena has taken on Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Edge and defeating all of them except for Edge who beat him at New Years Revolution after Cena successfully defended the title in an Elimination Chamber, and Edge took his opportunity to cash his Money in the Bank contract and defeated him. That title reign lasted just three weeks as Cena regained the title at the Royal Rumble. Just recently Cena had a feud with Triple H, and just when everyone thought Cena would finally lose and be chasing the title he defeated Triple H.

To answer that question is John Cena boring or stale...only time will tell. Obliviously the wrestling fans want to see a different champion and are just tired of John Cena being champion. As John Cena's ring theme goes "The Time is Now"...The time has past and its time for a new champion.

by Derek Luciano

Exaire Anderson wrote:
The champ is boring" Far from it. John Cena is the "freshest" character the WWE has to offer right now. Who do you recommend besides Edge" HHH: same act for the last 6 years. Flair: see HHH except add 20years. Kane....uhh no! RVD: Ok,but where would he go from there. Shelton: Trapped under the glass ceiling. WWE had nobody at time near being ready. Batista's feud was well over after dismissing HHH. Go to Smackdown freshen up. Same idea with Cena, that and his gimmick fits better on raw. With new match up's Cena had a fresh start an new line up with matches. Yes he killed Jericho and Angle (both favorites with real fans of the business) so of course backlash was inevitable. But hey, he was the companies new face and needed credibility.

Raw would be in trouble had it not been for Cena. The fans have been given too much power. Mania's main event wasn't HHH vs Cena, it was the fans versus the fans. The fans only want to be heard and almost seem like they are their own biggest fans. Cena just happens to be the folly for the fans chants. Cena may not be an 80's flair or a Randy Orton up and comer but Cena has the ability but is just not "allowed" to use it (it would break his character) In the Rock's earlier years he flew around the ring like a bat outta hell. A year later he was a cool heel that wasn't allowed to "wow" the audience with his flying cuz it would "break character" We all cheered Cena during his chase for the title....ok now he has it....well we put that strap on him! Now that we have what we want....what next! Ok lets booo the hell out of him.

If HHH won the title how long would it take fans to turn on him saying "he's always getting the strap" and "god he's holding back talent" The crowd would bore of his actions faster than Viscera would clear out a buffet! Fans are cynical and just love being the anti-promotional voice. Cena happens to be the man in the middle. In my opinion he doesn't need to go heel, but take a page out of the Rocks book. Shun the fans! Ignore them and become a cool tweener. Go back to his "hardcore thug life ways" stop smiling and jumping around like a Lucha on Ecstasy (sorry Juvi). Cena needs to take some of that control back from the fans and work the mic like few on that roster can. If he can weather this storm Cena may come out fine. Yes I agree he was shoved down our throats but hell so is HHH. As long as Cena is killing on Merchandise,we better find a good spot on the couch cuz this could take a while!

Tat2 wrote:
nice article about the history of john cena, let me say though i keep hearing everyone complaining about cena, why" is he anymore boring than the 10 hhh title runs, i think not i mean talk about boring its time for new blood. of course hhh fans are also waitng for hogan to make one more title run. their is nothing wrong with new people getting the torch passed to them, i realize cena is very young in comparison to most of the prior champs, but that doesnt make him boring. i keep hearing his in ring moves are boring as well. i didnt realize that hhh, kane, shawn michaels, or batista had a wide array of moves. ric flair 16 time champ, has five or six moves tops. to conclude if all u cena haters want him to lose the title so bad stop booing him, the wwe realizes pay per view rates will be great if everyone is tuning in to see cena lose the belt.

Tyrone Hunter wrote:
I am so sick of folks complaining bout this John Cena character. Look I boo John Cena cuz its fun truth be told. As soon as Triple H becomes champ, I can see it now, everybody will start to moan bout Trips is always champ. Cena is doing iight as the champ, he is the first controversial champ in WWE history to get booed while he gets cheers, and you know what, it sells cuz we the fans are buying into it. Think bout it, with him as the champ, now you can throw Edge in the mix and have yourself a triple threat at this year's Backlash. See I think you wanna stretch this feud with Cena and Triple H as long as you can, since it so thrown together or rushed for WrestleMania. I like John Cena. Hell I like booing John Cena. I love Triple H and I was in aww when he lost, but it makes sense. Isn't that what we want. We want to be fooled and tricked into believing that Trips is going to take the title from a young kid who can't wrestle and then outta nowhere we least expect it, John Cena wins. Only thing I wanted to happen was for Cena to come out with a freestyle dissing the King of Kings at this years WrestleMania. Peep,as far as John Cena all I look foward to is a face who acts heel, Stone Cold was the indeed the first. Now if I, and I speak for myself, can just see this from a John Cena then I believe we'll become satisfied as consumers, viewers, fans, and as a whole to a product who is learning to trim itself in a first time controversial champion..........

Jose Aguirre wrote:
Derek Luciano, you are like the millionth person to state that you hate John Cena, you write that Cena is boring, but you keep watching WWE. It's not like Jarett's heat, which was of utter bordem of disgust, but good heat because people keep watching and waiting. Cena is not my favorite wrestler, but he is one of the hardest working people on the WWE roster, and that counts a lot. You might not like his ring atire or what he did to the championship, but that's what is so good about him, he is diffrent and he has sealed his place as a future hall of famer. You just need to let his ring skills catch up to his mic skills. Yes, he does have excellent mic skills!!!

Alex Kongegaard wrote: "The time has past and its time for a new champion."

Dear Derek, the quote above seems to sum up the conclusion of your article. Now, that I got around to watching WM22 I have to disagree. Did you see the main event" Granted, that is a rhetorical question and as such not really meant seriously. But seriously, did you see the main event of WM22" That match was completely and utterly about one man and one man only: John Cena! And rightfully so, since everybody, and I mean, everybody in the realm of professional wrestling fandom seems to have an opinion about the quality of John Cena's performances And not just that, everybody seems to feel very passionate about his/her oppinion. Now, quite frankly, I think this is a good thing and it is an even better thing that the WWE has started to acknowledge and, since April 2nd, to actually accentuate it. Come to think of it, I believe that WWE over the last months tried to test the waters, trying to find out whether they could go with such a polarising character, i.e. giving Edge the title for a couple of weeks only to rile up the Anti-Cenas, if I might call them so, as much as possible and to see where it goes from there. It is an obviously dangerous path to go on and potentially disastrous for both WWE and John Cena, but there is a lot to be gained from it, too, if developed and performed carefully. So, before I type too much and turn this into a column of my own, let me just state once more that I think "the time IS now". Why" Because the main event of WM22 was an outstanding match in that it got the people watching it involved to a degree that is very rare these days. And why was that" Because of John Cena. HHH against anybody else would not have had that kind of impact.

C JACKSON wrote:
im sick of john cena he was allright at first i never cheered for him he is BORING him being the champion is rubbish he aint even that good to be a big time champion thats y john cena days are gone with raw they have a top man to do the job hhh i have full respect to that man so john cena is just a crap gimmick. i would like to see what you think of him

Gian Patelo, from Manila, Philippines, wrote:
I have to give it to John Cena, he's a terrific athlete, he used to "up" the tempo of the crowd. In my opinion, one factor of him getting booed is his gimmick. His time has come but he has to have some other gimmick other than the rapper thing. It does get boring and the crowd is not buying it anymore. Another factor is he is up against one of the best wrestlers still active in the roster, Triple H. Hunter has been with WWE for a long time. He achieved more than any wrestler have achieved, combined. If you ask me who I will cheer for, I will sure as hell pick Triple H. Triple H is one of the greatest heel ever! He can piss off the crowd but still the crowd will go nuts whenever you hear his entrance song come in. When I watched the RAW live tour last February 24 here in Manila, everyone here cheered for him instead of Big Show. John Cena was lucky he wasn't facing Triple H here because it will be disappointing for him. Another thing for me is he was actually complimenting Triple H in their face to face interview. He was saying he's one of the greatest, he was 10 time world champion. In my opinion, NEVER LET TRIPLE H HAVE THE LEVERAGE! He can brag about anything all the time cause he has the shit to back it up. He just dug his on grave on that.

In the end, John Cena has reached the end of road, its up to the writers or up to him to make more impact to the audience. If he doesn't think of any new gimmicks, his time has come. Tough luck John Cena, the King of Kings is right infront of you.

Jesse Lee wrote:
I've grown to respect Cena. Not for his skill in wrestling (or lack-there-of) but for his gutsy attempt to stay where he is. He's losing a ton of support when they're trying to push him as a face. I respect Cena for trying (and he does try) as he's paired up with talents such as Angle, Triple H, Edge, etc. While I'm not a huge, great, or even a common fan of John Cena, I've to respect him and kind of enjoy watching him in some parts of the show. I much prefer those such as Shelton Benjamin, RVD, (at the time) Christian, and others, but Cena has an okay spot. I'm not really all that worried about it.

Esony23 wrote:
The WWE always had a power to control the audience.With that audience booing or cheering, the fans at home are going to be on their side.An example of that was when WWE Champion John Cena won the Elimination Chamber match by a way too fake roll up pin when Carlito took too much time saying that he was sorry to Chris Masters, everyone booed him because the same reason people are booing him now.Then the next night on Raw he said something stupid about some rapper. He said something like: a lot of people don't like me but there is still the chain gang with me. After that, these people started to like him again.The majority of fans don't really like his gimmick which is dum because they keep showing pictures of him growing up as a little suburban kid and the he says that he is a thug and that got stabbed but where is the scar" Triple H should have won because since the beginning of the match actually since the beginning of his entrance everyone booed.The WWE should have done something about that.Then making him tap out by the S.T.F.U sucks because they tried to make it look like when Chris Benoit made HHH tap out then the next night everyone would cheer" you tapped out"! But that was what didn't happened because that quick the audience would cheer for him once again. Luckily the people in Chicago did what they wanted and that was pretty cool.My favorite part of the match was when they were cheering and booing back and forth then John hit him with some move, but then HHH got him with one of his moves and immediatley cheered. People like Matt Kennedy are the ones that are the getting controlled by the WWE. But we are the ones that are that control the WWE and we can do whatever we want and say what ever we say! Am I right!

MCT wrote:
Thats a nice article that shows off all of Cena's accomplishments but I think you fall short of explaining why Cena is so boring. I mean John Cena is really all WWE has right now when it comes to a babyface marketable champion. I too think he has been champion for too long but he doesn't deserve to get boo'd as bad as he does. Booing him at the Hall Of Fame was just plain disrespectful and tasteless. I personally think its a simple case of "Monkey See, Monkey Do" the fans just keep booing Cena because everyone else is doing it each week. If you asked each person, they couldnt come up with a good reply why he sucks. I like Cena and I hope he loses the title soon but somehow, continues to main event ppvs and become a future Hall Of Famer.

Dave from Memphis wrote:
I think the reason Cena gets booed is because a kid who entered wrestling 6 years ago is getting an insane push that normally guys have to work their asses off for. --- Bret Hart became champ in the WWF in 1992. He made his wrestling debut in 1976 --- Steve Austin became champ in 1998. He made his wrestling debut in 1989 --- Shawn Michaels became champ in 1996. He made his wrestling debut in 1984 --- Mick Foley became champ in 1998. He made his wrestling debut in 1983 --- While they didn't all debut in the WWF the year they entered wrestling, they all did their share of jobbing, honing their skills, making a name, and gaining respect. I'm aware some of that was because if your name didn't end in Hogan, Flair, Anderson, or Savage you got peanuts. If you complained about it, you got your ass handed to you and then told to find another job. --- So, perhaps the fans are showing their displeasure at having Cena being shoved down their throats as the future of wrestling, and joining Batista and Benoit (which is very surprising) on the short list of "Wrestlers Triple H has put over". Compare that to the list of "Wrestlers Triple H has buried"- RVD, Jericho, Kane, Christian, Booker T, Orton (long before Orton decided to get "indefinitely suspended").

Philip Earley "UBER-GEEK" wrote:
In my opinion, I don't believe we'll be seeing Cena in any stellar matches showcasing his wonderful, superstar level wrestling ability. For one simple reason: He just isn't that good. In my opinion Cena doesn't understand why a move should be done. An STF is a classic submission which is still devastating, a move I believe (I could very well be wrong) that saw its genesis with the original Undisputed Champion, Lou Thesz. Its a great move, if you know why its done. Too many wrestlers anymore that use a submission as a pet finisher or high move don't know why they're doing it. Example" The edgucater. Did I even spell that right" Oh well. Anyways, its a pretty looking move that attacks the LEGS. How many times before Edge uses that move do you see him WEAR DOWN THE LEGS" You don't. Because just like Cena, Edge doesn't understand the SPORT of wrestling. An STF hurts the head, neck, legs, and chest, making it difficult to breath. So why doesn't Cena systematically wear down these parts of the body (not just slams to the back and punches to the face) in order to make a subbmission victory seem believable" Because he isn't smart or good enough to BE that kind of general that he thinks he is. The STFU is a disgrace to the legacy that is technical wrestling. And its not just these two "wrestlers" that do this. This runs rampant in just about every promotion. Many matches don't have in-ring phsycology. But one I saw recently on Raw of all places DID. To anybody who tapes Raw I can't remeber the exact date, I believe it was a few weeks shy of WM22, it was Big Show vs Cena in the main event. Now before you blow your lids on my "bad taste" in matches, watch what Paul White DOES through the whole encounter: Attacks ONE PART of Cena's body to set him up for the chokeslam. He played it surprisingly smart. In a wrestling world where Show is outshining "The Champ", perhaps we should take a few steps back, and just for a few minutes, FORGET that there is a predetermined winner, and call the matches by what is done in the ring. Suddenly, not a lot of high profile bouts makes sence anymore.

Jesco Brodersen wrote:
Basically you sum up Cena's career in your article. Your last column doesn't really fit the rest of the text. When reading I didn't see a hint to this solution. Something you might want to work on. Also you need to get more into detail about fan reactions concerning Cena, if that is what you're trying to tell us about. So much about the structural things. If you differ from what I write feel free to do so.

Now to my point why I don't like Cena. His whole gimmick is so fake. He's a decent wrestler but has to show his "thug"-styles. The five knuckle shuffle, just like the worm or the people's elbow, is one move no one believes in. And last he just ain't a rapper. He hasn't got what the people call street-credibility. I'm not saying that I have it but there's a difference between seeing Cena rap and p.e. Ron Killings or B.G. James rip a rhyme. Cena being a streetrapper is about as real as the Undertaker doing the Dude Love gimmick or Muhammad Hassan making his way to the ring with Hulk Hogan's theme (I'm a real American).

Kenpei Ryuujin wrote:
I read the article, and not only the article but all the people's opinion. And seems everyone is for Cena and against the fans (almost). And well, I thought wrestling was for the fans, I mean, if the don't like him, then so what" I dont like Cena's gimmik, but I like his skill, no only in the ring, but him cutting down people w/ his rhymes on the mic. But if I had to say weather I was for Cena being champ or not, I'd say, I'd like to see a new Champion, weather it be Cena or not. I think it would be cool to see Cena turn heal and relish in the boo's of the crowd. Or let Triple H win it and be the biggest heel on TV again. I mean, I think Cena, (in my opinion, I understand maybe few, or even alot won't agree with me) was a better heel than baby face. But that again, thats just me. Anywho, the longer Cena has it and the longer Triple H goes for it, and same goes for Edge (for all of Edge's fans which I am not, sorry n_n), once either of them wins it, it'll be all that much greater than just winning it. I agree with Tyrone Hunter in that he said "...stretch this feud with Cena and Triple H as long as you can, since it so thrown together or rushed for WrestleMania...". Had there been some serious build up before Wrestlemania, then yeah, I'd say HHH should have one it or Cena turn heel. But there wasn't so, lets see who things unfold over time.

wrote:

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