Is Cena also a victim of bad booking?

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

Now hear me out. He's been booked strong forever and whatnot but I'm starting to think he hasn't been WRITTEN in a way that takes advantage of his strengths and whatever.

He's obviously a good talent and had a big connection with the crowd in the beginning but the weird coddling and overprotection by the writing team is a real handicap.

He could be a really interesting character with a great worker behind it. But....awkwardness at every turn.

[Hit Girl]

He's not a victim because he has the power to change it, but doesn't.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Of course he is. Were he not as overexposed and as protected as he is, how could he not get Shawn Michaels/Ric Flair comparisons in terms of all the great matches he's had?

I have no idea how responsible for his dominance he is, I imagine he does assert he wants to look strong but I doubt he's the one cutting off other guys' pushes. But him being the top guy for over a decade with no break, while understandably frustrating, has blinded a lot of fans as to how good the guy is.

[Deleted]

You'll be hard pushed to find anyone who can argue that he's not been booked like an inconsistent turd in a non-organic way. He's a good (and can be great) wrestler in longer matches despite some shortcomings, and he can be a solid/good promo when he's not turning into a cliche Boston/cliche preacher.

Aug 26, 2014 8:26:58 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

He's not a victim because he has the power to change it, but doesn't.

But this can not be understated.

[Push R Truth]

I'm waiting until NOC to get a full answer. Here's a preview:

If Cena goes into NOC acting like the same old douchebag LOL I WIN Cena and gets killed again forcing his character to actually admit total defeat and have it affect him in some way... I get it. It's new, it's different.

If Cena goes into NOC acting like typical LOL I WIN douchebag Cena and beats Lesnar: I could puke alphabets on the floor and come up with better writing.

[Mozenrath]

They don't really do Cena a ton of favors sometimes. He's booked like Bugs Bunny. Now, ask most adults. Do they like Bugs more, or Daffy? Most are going to say Daffy. Same goes for Spongebob and Squidward.

[Mozenrath]

Aug 26, 2014 8:26:58 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

He's not a victim because he has the power to change it, but doesn't.

I would be inclined to agree, but then I remember Triple H humping a mannequin. Main eventers have limits to what they can veto.

[Deleted]

Cena's been the top guy for nine straight years and brings in a fifth of the WWE's annual income, he's not a "victim" of anything. If he wanted to be written better, he would be - the fact that he isn't suggests that he's either a Hogan-level egotist, or a spineless corporate pussy too afraid to challenge WWE's vision of him.

[Mid-Carder]

Bad booking that's extremely beneficial to him and detrimental to everybody else, yes.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Aug 26, 2014 8:47:11 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

They don't really do Cena a ton of favors sometimes. He's booked like Bugs Bunny. Now, ask most adults. Do they like Bugs more, or Daffy? Most are going to say Daffy. Same goes for Spongebob and Squidward.

That's why I always felt The Looney Tunes Show did more to help Bugs than hurt him. In some classic shorts he was so god-mode he made 80's Hogan look like Zack Gowen, so I enjoyed seeing him as a flustered straight man.

SpongeBob's gone so downhill these days though, I'm pretty sure Cena would try to kill him after ten minutes.

[________ has left the building]

He's a victim of his tv age not being fresh. If you look at the past WWE main eventers (Hogan, Warrior, Savage, Rock, Austin, Taker, HHH, HBK, Hart, Diesel, Sid), their time on top wasn't that long and their overall exposure was a lot less than Cena. The longest break Cena had was when he suffered his neck injury. Hogan had the benefit of only a few shows he actually had to appear on tv and they had even less programming to fulfilled. Cena is on Raw almost every week. He's been on top for over 7 years. Only Bruno, Backlund, and Hogan can say that. And like I said, their overall exposure was not at the levels of John's.

[Hit Girl]

Aug 26, 2014 8:48:19 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

Aug 26, 2014 8:26:58 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

He's not a victim because he has the power to change it, but doesn't.

I would be inclined to agree, but then I remember Triple H humping a mannequin. Main eventers have limits to what they can veto.

HHH didn't object to that because he and Vince honestly believed it would work.

As far as I'm aware they were under the impression, along with Dunn, that it would be seen as black comedy.

[Chiral]

Aug 26, 2014 8:49:05 GMT -5 @tacticalsneakman said:

Cena's been the top guy for nine straight years and brings in a fifth of the WWE's annual income, he's not a "victim" of anything. If he wanted to be written better, he would be - the fact that he isn't suggests that he's either a Hogan-level egotist, or a spineless corporate pussy too afraid to challenge WWE's vision of him.

My guess is that he's like Kevin Nash in WCW. Very protective of his spot, but is a well liked guy backstage so it's just accepted.

[Germansuplex]

Aug 26, 2014 8:59:40 GMT -5 ________ has left the building said:

He's a victim of his tv age not being fresh. If you look at the past WWE main eventers (Hogan, Warrior, Savage, Rock, Austin, Taker, HHH, HBK, Hart, Diesel, Sid), their time on top wasn't that long and their overall exposure was a lot less than Cena. The longest break Cena had was when he suffered his neck injury. Hogan had the benefit of only a few shows he actually had to appear on tv and they had even less programming to fulfilled. Cena is on Raw almost every week. He's been on top for over 7 years. Only Bruno, Backlund, and Hogan can say that. And like I said, their overall exposure was not at the levels of John's.

This is a big part of the problem. Guys like Cena, Orton, Show, and Kane have been on our screens for thousands of hours now. This is way more exposure than back in the day. So the audience gets tired of them faster, regardless of the actual quality of their work. It doesn't help that most of these guys have played the same character for years.

[Deleted]

Cena has talked up Wyatt in interviews outside WWE - I can't imagine he was in love with last night. It rendered their whole feud pointless.

[Hobby Drifter]

God, yes.

The only time I *dislike* John Cena is the hour or so he's on my TV every week.

[airraidcrash]

He is the worst booked top star in WWE history.

At worst he's number 2, if you count CM Punk.

[Ryback on a Pole!]

I like Cena, he's one of the WWE's all time best wrestlers imo and very rarely has a bad match. Time after time you can count on him to deliver but... it's getting to the point where I'm sick of him.

I don't like superman booking. It's boring. The face needs to be in peril. We need to actually worry about whether he's going to pull through or not and, feud with Brock aside, you don't get that with Cena.

In other forms of entertainment, the face can and does look weak. In Buffy she got her ass kicked time and time again by the big bad before getting the final win (Hell, Glory and Caleb pretty much Lesnared her early on), Luke is defeated by Vader who obviously could have finished their first fight anytime he chose and so on. For a hero story to work, there needs to be some peril. The face needs to look vulnerable to build tension.

With Cena stories there is no tension because you just know Cena is going to win pretty easily. Now granted, he doesn't need to look vulnerable all the time. Against the right opponent, a guy obviously out of his league such as Miz then Cena should dominate. But against someone like Bray, Cena should have dropped a loss or two. He should have been on the retreat to build the tension.

Now against Brock, there is tension because Cena lost. This should be good character development for Cena but no. He's not going to adapt or change his style. He's not going to develop a new finisher to use against Brock or anything. He's just going to be the same old Cena overcoming the odds.

If I was booking the story, I'd have Cena start practising offence targeting the stomach in build up matches. Gutbuster, gutwrench suplexes, kicks to the stomach etc since that is Brock's weak point and have the build be that Cena is developing a plan targeting Brock where he's weakest. I'd also have him change his finisher since Brock is immune to it and start using (if WWE would allow it) a piledriver instead and play on the fact that Cena is starting to master the most dangerous move in wrestling as his weapon against Lesnar.

[Deleted]

Everyone else is a victim of Cena's inability to grow a spine and actually change things.

[Mozenrath]

Aug 26, 2014 9:10:35 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Aug 26, 2014 8:48:19 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

I would be inclined to agree, but then I remember Triple H humping a mannequin. Main eventers have limits to what they can veto.

HHH didn't object to that because he and Vince honestly believed it would work.

As far as I'm aware they were under the impression, along with Dunn, that it would be seen as black comedy.

I was almost positive he knew it was stupid, but also knew if he wasn't a team player, he'd kind of be seen as throwing his weight around. Plus, if Vince specifically asks someone to do something, not the writers asking, it's pretty hard to say no.