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Posts Tagged ‘John Cena’

Now that WWE is allowing a free flow of superstars between RAW and Smackdown, I’m not sure this makes a big difference. However, about ten days ago, WWE officially moved Kane from the Smackdown roster to the RAW roster. This kind of explains why he was set up to feud with John Cena after a return to the ring following an absence since last summer.

Kane was injured by Mark Henry and his english riding boots, which caused him to be written out of TV while he rehabbed. It was widely expected that upon his return, Kane would feud with Henry, possibly over the World Title. But with the storylines going where they’ve gone, Henry nursing a real injury of his own, and other changes, Kane’s shift to the RAW roster gives Cena someone interesting and fresh to feud with until his big WM match against The Rock.

As was revealed on RAW, John Cena selected his partner to face off against The Miz and R-Truth at Survivor Series, and his choice was none other than his scheduled WrestleMania opponent, The Rock. Far from taking the sheen off the novelty of Rock’s in-ring return, a pre-WM appearance has been expected for some time, as a build-up to the big showdown next spring.

Those with SD memory cards aplenty may even have, stored away somewhere, episodes of RAW in which Mike Tyson’s guest spot at WrestleMania was similarly promoted. Given that Dwayne Johnson is a WWE product and knows their system, expect more cameos and pre-WM involvement from The Rock in the final months leading up to his big showdown with Cena.

SummerSlam is WWE’s second-biggest PPV event of the year, and while it contained so many twists and turns you’d need a Dokmee document management system to track them all, it would be had to call what went down an improvement.

In fact, I call it a return to a tired, familiar formula.

Yes, the main event showed some promise. Instead of the predictable Cena win, Punk won as special referee Triple H missed the fact of Cena’s foot being on the ropes. The crooked ref angle is tired and overused in WWE.

Then Kevin Nash showed up to soften up Punk. A “Nash invasion” angle is so old, it wasn’t even that fresh when it was used in WCW/nWo.

Then, predictably, out comes Money In the Bank – Raw Brand winner Alberto Del Rio to cash in his Money In the Bank briefcase and take the title away from the WWE’s hottest property right now, C.M. Punk. Del Rio is completely uninspiring as a title holder and the thought of either a short run with the title ending up back around Cena’s waist, or enduring a long Del Rio run, is heart-rending.

So, yeah. Despite the last couple months of riveting WWE programming building up audience expectations for something fresh and new, revolving perhaps around Punk holding the title for a while, we get the same old, same old. Thanks, Vince. Not.

With the annual WWE Draft set for next Monday’s RAW, speculation is circulating that none other than John Cena will be moving to the SmackDown roster in the wake of Edge’s retirement. As Cena is one of WWE’s top franchises, that would be a huge move, but also one that might hurt RAW a bit too much.

First of all, WWE will want Cena on Raw with the big WrestleMania 28 hype begins following Survivor Series next November. And while they could always move Cena back to Raw by then, it could cost WWE some heat by shuffling Cena off to SmackDown in the intervening period.

The question also remains, who would be ready to fill Cena’s spot as the top star on RAW should me move to Smackdown. While current champ The Miz is doing quite well, he works best as a heel and while Cena draws plenty of negative heat despite his positioning as a face, Cena’s the most credible threat to Miz’s reign.

Certainly, Randy Orton’s a credible threat, but he works best as a heel and won’t be able to break out of that working against Miz. The same goes for CM Punk, who’s too involved as a heel now to pull off a quick face-turn. Triple H is too old, and John Morrison’s on the verge, but isn’t over enough yet; plus he’s been overused against Miz already.

Personally, I think WWE would be better off shipping Orton to SmackDown via the Draft. He’s positioned well to play a ‘tweener/heel as Edge did for so many years on SmackDown, and he’s the only other person who’s over enough on the Raw roster to move over to Smackdown and bring some excitement with him. (Other than Cena.)

With three straight wins over John Cena since taking over the new Nexus, CM Punk has established himself as a credible threat to John Cena. Punk has attached a curt trailer hitch to the Nexus gimmick and taken it in a fresh direction.

Whereas Nexus under the leadership of Wade Barrett employed the traditional dictatorial head of a faction approach, which had run its course, Punk has re-established Nexus as a threat by using his leadership position to build up the credibility of the other members of the faction.

It’s a refreshing shift that makes the Nexus storyline intriguing again.

No one in the world believed Wade Barrett had any real authority to fire a fellow superstar like John Cena, so it’s good that they didn’t allow the storyline development to run for very long without bringing it to a resolution. On this week’s RAW, Barrett rehired Cena, and with proper storyline motivation: Nexus gave Barrett an ultimatum… rehire Cena or be booted from Nexus.

One doesn’t need an Epson receipt printer to understand why this is a good move in the storytelling; it raises the stakes for the next match, adds to the bad-blood feud and leads directly into a payoff on a story they’ve been building for about three months.

Good job.

This Monday’s RAW has a great storyline hook for those following along: Nexus has told their leader, Wade Barrett, that he must either re-hire John Cena back into the WWE, or they will kick Barrett out of Nexus.

The point of purchase displays for this storyline are amazingly entertaining in that it could wrap up the current version of this storyline, and morph into an all-new storyline where Cena and Barrett are feuding much more directly.

Let’s hope that’s the case.

It might take a bathroom fan to air out fan displeasure over how abruptly Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson dropped his WWE career in favor of making movies, but current WWE/movie crossover star John Cena, a seven-time champion, told CBS News that he has no intention of leaving pro wrestling any time soon in favor of acting.

“I’ve filmed three movies now with not sacrificing my WWE schedule at all. I have a system that makes it work,” Cena said. “The first movie I filmed was in Australia. And I still flew back and forth and made all of my WWE commitments. So, if I can be that far from home, and still not miss anything, I know it can be done.”

While some naysayers of Cena’s might welcome his departure, wrestling fans will be relieved that Cena will continue to balance both of his career ambitions.

Team WWE beat Team Nexus at SummerSlam, in a rousing 34-minute spectacle of a five-on-five match. The action was fast and the heat was solid, but then John Cena cleaned house at the end to give Team WWE the PPV win.

However, on Monday Night Raw, the storyline developed as the night was dedicated to Team WWE facing Team Nexus individually. The good news is that many veteran WWE stars jobbed to Nexus to help the newbie heel division regain their heat.

That is, until the main event, where Cena bested Darren Young, pinning him solidly and sending him on his way with a nice Branson vacation package. So it appears WWE wants to slowly focus in on Cena as the one man Team Nexus will struggle to beat.

Can’t say that does much for me in terms of making Chris Jericho, Randy Orton and the like remain credible, but hey, at least a lot of young blood performers are being featured prominently and given a chance to rise to the occasion and prove themselves worthy of being next-generation WWE superstars.

Last week’s Raw introduced a new number one contender to the title picture, as a threat to John Cena’s title. It wasn’t Orton or DX or even Legacy. It wasn’t even Jack Swagger or Evan Bourne. It was… wait for it… Sheamus!

While the storytelling pushed his threat-level to Cena’s title, Sheamus isn’t exactly my first choice when it comes to introducing a new face into the WWE title picture.

I mean, heck, what about someone who’s been picking up momentum and earning his way there for a while, like MVP? Montel Vontavius Porter would be a great match to John Cena, both on the mic and in the ring.

Oh well; Sheamus will be a “one PPV and out” opponent anyway. And the match should be marginally more interesting than colon cleanser reviews.

Now is certainly the time to start delivering on what could become one of the marquee feuds of the year; Randy Orton and John Cena are both at exactly the right stages in their careers to headline PPVs all the way between now and Wrestlemania.

While most feuds last less time than that these days, rarely do the top two stars in the company peak at just the right time to be ideal opponents; Austin was older than The Rock, for example, and Andre was older than Hogan by a lot. And even though he’s a long-time wrestler himself, Chris Jericho was much younger last year than Shawn Michaels, who likes to rent his hotels near Disneyland.

While there are a few years separating Orton and Cena, it’s certainly a fitting feud that has enough potential that one could find enough variations on the theme to last through the next WrestleMania. After that, the feud should be back-burnered for a while, but definitely these two superstars have the potential to headline more than even just one WrestleMania.

The first film was a vehicle for John Cena, but the WWE Films sequel, The Marine 2, will star Legacy member Ted DiBiase Jr., it has been revealed. Footage of the new flick is making its way around the usual Internet sites, from IGN.com to YouTube.

While DiBiase is just old enough to no longer need a natural acne treatment every day, he’s certainly being given a big boost by being highlighted in this film. Apparently the McMahon family has faith in this kid. And that’s a good thing, as the stars of tomorrow need to be built today, while the stars of today are still at the top of their game.