Was Cena better than Reigns during his superpush?

[Abdullah]

...Was he worse? Are they the same?

So. I liked to say that it was Carlito that brought me back to wrestling in 2004. It's a neat little story, but it's not exactly right. I watched a bit of 2004 and 2005. I saw him here and there in 2006. I read online recaps in 2007. And then, early in 2008, I started watching full-time.

All of this to say that I kind of missed out on the vast majority of Cena's rise to the top. I saw a bit of his feud with Edge. I know that he was hated, because there was a trick you could do in most Yahoo! chatrooms - just type Cena's name and you'd divert the conversation instantly. I'm very slowly collecting episodes from back then, but as of right now? I don't know.

I don't know if he was better at being overpushed than Roman is. For those who did watch back then, what was it like?

I will say: since 2014, I've skipped like 90% of Roman's segments and matches. RAW is long enough. PPVs are long enough. He's not compelling to me and enough people talk about him as it is. With Cena... maybe because I wasn't regularly enough, he was interesting. He had better feuds. He had actual feuds. I'm tempted to say, even in his relatively early years, he's a better wrestler than Roman is now.

[Ben Wyatt]

Cena wins this based on 2 things. 1) He was never loathed by as many people and 2) his matches were for the most part far and away better than Reigns

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

Aug 5, 2018 6:08:02 GMT -5 Ben Wyatt said:

Cena wins this based on 2 things. 1) He was never loathed by as many people and 2) his matches were for the most part far and away better than Reigns

Also, Cena was legit chosen by the fans to be at worst the number 2 guy (once Batista's push started it was between those 2). People seem to forget that Cena was red hot, and fans wanted him to be the guy. It's when the superpush went overboard, that fans started to get mad.

[Deleted]

I basically missed the first half of Cena, but dude is way better than Roman at everything except busting his zipper (Big Dog) so I'm going to go ahead and say this silly Reigns shit is way worse.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

An interesting note I found...

Between winning the WWE Championship in 2005 and vacating it through injury in 2007, arguably his establishing run as the company ace, there were only 119 days where Cena was NOT holding that title.

Roman Reigns has only even BEEN a world champion for 118 days, through about three or four attempts at his own “establishing run”.

[Hit Girl]

Cena is better than Reigns in every way possible.

[mcstoklasa]

I liked some of what Cena did. I now hate Reigns

[abjordans]

Cena was way more over with his 50% of the audience than Roman is.

The let’s go Cena/Cena sucks thing, even at its height, wasn’t turning people away. Like, they paid to come do that. Roman Reigns isn’t over in that way, people like hate him and what he stands for. Like I don’t think this part makes sense, but it is different.

[starscream76]

Cena's by 100,000,000 miles. His was forced to the point of me wanting to puke too but there was justification to it. Little kids love Cena so I could understand why they were doing it...Roman Reigns on the other hand...I don't see any kids exactly going ga-ga over him. I have never seen 1 kid wear a Reigns T-shirt compared to Cena where kids still wear that shit. As a matter of fact I see more kids wearing Bayley shirts than Reigns. Even in the arenas you don't really hear the high pitched voices cheering him on like you do with Cena.

It seems like Reigns only has 1 major fan and that's Vince McMahon which is the only one that matters in terms of who gets a super push.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

I think it depends on how you look at it.

Cena shits on Roman on the mic and always, always has.

In his early main event run I think Cena looked like a cartoon character in the ring - look at his pantomime stagger with Jericho on his shoulders in 2005.

Roman was given less heavy lifting to do in his early main event run (and in an irrelevant side swipe, I didn't mean literally, but f*** is Roman weak for a power guy) but was better than Cena from jump street.

However, within six months to a year of their main event runs, Roman barely evolved in the ring and is now about as good as Cena was in 2006/2007 but across that year Cena went from a guy who could turn it on in a PPV main event to one of the greatest to ever do it within a few years. By 2011 Cena's legacy from a quality standpoint was pretty much undeniable.

As a top guy, Roman is only a little above Diesel.

[Feyrhausen]

Cena was better at being what WWE wants out of their biggest star. He can talk, crack jokes, etc. He was better when he had some edge to him but he could succeed at being who they wanted.

Reigns is best as a silent badass. When they try to force him into the WWE main eventer mold he looks like the joke.

[Yacht Persona]

Cena regardless of the super push always felt like a legit main event talent that belonged in that spot. Roman does not.

[Deleted]

In-ring wise Reigns now is better than 05-07 Cena.

Promo-wise, Cena is of course better.

I've enjoyed Reigns' push far more but that's because Cena was never really one of my favorites while Reigns is, and Reigns' push has been far less obnoxious in terms of presentation. You may scoff at that but during Cena's god push he was presented as being better at everything than everyone and was rarely if ever made to look genuinely outclassed. Cena always got the last word in promos, could outsmart the manipulators, out-brawl the brawlers, and could out-wrestle the technical wrestlers. He made Sabu, the man who never tapped out, tap out with his godawful STF, beat Edge in Edge's specialty match in Edge's hometown, and almost always won. The few times he did lose were never clean, and even then Cena would get his win back within a month. The idea of prime Cena losing clean on a random throwaway show like Extreme Rules, like Reigns just did, was laughable, and the idea of prime Cena losing clean at WrestleMania, like Reigns has done twice, was unthinkable.

Super-push era John Cena is the biggest Mary Sue in wrestling history.

[Facetious]

Well they haven't wasted 4 straight Mania events trying to get Cena over and Cena actually had good matches even at his worst so he wins.

[Kevin Hamilton]

Easily. I like Roman, but Cena has an It factor that not only Reigns, but few guys have.

[Deleted]

As a fan I have no fondness for Cena's time on top but you can't deny that he was a star. He put 100% into everything, and had a better command of the audience. I like Roman but he comes off as more of a passenger on a ride as opposed to Cena who was an undeniable force.

[Gus Richlen Was Wrong]

Cena was making great use of the Burial Machine even back then. I honestly cannot remember who he actually put over other than Edge.

So he loses this by default.

[xxshoyuweeniexx]

Besides “everybody in the back likes him” and he has “all the tools” as Jim Ross would say, nothing about Roman pops out at you like Cena. Dude had a connection with the crowd, loved or hated, that Reigns just doesn’t have.

Also you could at least make an argument that Cena’s merchandise kept him number one. As much as guys booed him, his shirts were littered around arenas, kids and adults like. I mean Roman does ok merch wise..but he’s not like blowing anybody away in numbers. It’s not some huge gap between Seth and AJ either. Cena just about paid for the McMahon grandkids to be set for life, Roman’s just kinda along for the Saudi Arabian and Fox money ride, not the cause of it.

[1 Free Moon-Down with Burger]

Aug 5, 2018 11:04:14 GMT -5 Gus Richlen Was Wrong said:

Cena was making great use of the Burial Machine even back then. I honestly cannot remember who he actually put over other than Edge.

So he loses this by default.

Top guys at the peak of their powers shouldn’t be putting many people over. Thats what makes them top guys.

[Jedi-El of Tomorrow]

Aug 5, 2018 8:22:45 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

However, within six months to a year of their main event runs, Roman barely evolved in the ring and is now about as good as Cena was in 2006/2007 but across that year Cena went from a guy who could turn it on in a PPV main event to one of the greatest to ever do it within a few years.

Cena got 2 watchable matches out of Khali. He pulled better matches out of Khali than HBK, Triple H, and Taker ever could.