5 Reasons Not To Cheer For John Cena's WWE Return

The champ is here! And...?

john cena celebration
WWE.com

In late December, John Cena returned from a two-month absence to begin the build for a WrestleMania match that would have seen him take on The Undertaker. This "Battle of Legends" was supposed to be the main drawing point for the show, but just a few weeks later, Cena suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery. It was estimated that he would have to miss six to nine months of action, taking him out of WrestleMania.

Cena being Cena, he was able to return faster than expected. He actually made an appearance at WrestleMania, and while he didn't wrestle, he helped The Rock fight off an attack from The Wyatt Family. From that point on, fans knew it was only a matter of time before Big Match John was back on the active roster. This past week, Cena finally spilled the beans about his return. On his official Twitter account, the 15-time world champion announced that he'll be back on the May 30th Raw in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The countdown has begun, but is it worth getting excited? Given the current state of the company, Cena's return might not be what his die-hard fans (myself included) are anticipating, nor will it give the rest of the WWE Universe the respite they need from the current product. 

Here are five reasons not to cheer for John Cena's WWE return:

5. It Won't Do Styles, Owens, Zayn, Cesaro, Et Al Any Favors

john cena celebration
WWE.com

Since WrestleMania, it seems like WWE is finally starting to give chances to new and up-and-coming talent. Men like AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Dean Ambrose, and Cesaro are all played prominent roles at Payback, and Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows are cast a shadow over the show's main event. Further down the card, Enzo and Cass, The Vaudevillains, Charlotte, and Natalya all had featured matches.

It can be argued that the only reason this show is giving so many of these wrestlers opportunities is because so many of the top guys are out. Once John Cena returns, everybody below him will get knocked down a peg - just look at WrestleMania in recent years, where superstars come out of the woodwork and so undercard singles matches are almost nonexistent.

To be fair, Cena's return doesn't need to be bad for stars on the cusp of breaking out; he could easily work programs with some of them that would elevate their stock. Unfortunately, as we've seen in the past, it doesn't seem to work that way. Cena's feuds with Bray Wyatt, Rusev, and even Kevin Owens have irreparably harmed those men in the long term, and we don't need more of that.

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Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013