10 Best Major John Cena Feuds
Hustle. Loyalty. Respectable-at-best Randy Orton rivalry not included.
Let's go, Cena!:
John Cena has enjoyed the longest stint on top of any of the faces carved into WWE's Mount Rushmore. He does not manage that feat if he is as dire as some critics proffer. He is a master emotional manipulator, able to generate a reaction through his mere presence and the slightest display of body language. He has competed in countless very good matches and several classics. He has improved as he passed the years by, adding to his repertoire and adapting to the pace and psychology of his peers in a way that Hulk Hogan would not or could not. He is a genuinely, searingly charismatic megastar, love him or hate him.
Cena sucks!:
He is either incapable or unwilling to elevate certain opponents he is either threatened or bemused by. His STF - and this is no exaggeration - is the most poorly-executed move in mainstream wrestling. Many of his transitions are as clunky as his gait is awkward; it's still obvious, almost two decades later, that wrestling doesn't come as naturally to him as it does so many of his peers. His selling ranges from histrionic to nonexistent. So many of those new additions to his arsenal are performed with the sloppiness of a trainee. Nobody needs to see the Springboard Stunner ever again.
Cena's career defined by the debate. Harder to debate is the following...
10. Vs. Kevin Owens
The John Cena Vs. Kevin Owens rivalry of 2015 proved divisive in the ring.
Many fans enjoyed the action-packed back and forth template, which was markedly different to the underdog Cena fare with which he alienated those same fans for years. Others, your writer included, felt their trilogy too often resembled a drawn-out 22 minute YouTube highlight video - a constant big move trade-off posing just one basic psychological question: who is the better man? The answer changed from one minute to the next. Cena. Owens. Cena with a new move. Owens with another new move he hadn't yet hit. It was popcorn stuff; an exciting enough sugar rush lacking in substance. Still, few could deny that it achieved its objective, even if Cena emerged as the storyline better man by winning the series 2-1. When Owens won the first match, as clean as Shawn Michaels' 2006 DX material at Money In The Bank, it positioned him as a major player. Cena barely looked at the lights back then. In the end, just the one victory was enough.
A wrestling rivalry, ideally, elevates at least one of the acts involved in it. Owens emerged from the programme as a rare, instant hit of an NXT graduate.