7 WWE Good Guys The Fans Hated

If there’s a poster boy for Vince McMahon’s block-headed stubbornness it would be John Cena. To put Cena’s ridiculously long babyface run into perspective it dates back to the tail end of 2003. That’s thirteen years as a fan favourite and the term barely applies to Big Match John. He has been roundly booed by most of the males in the WWE’s audience since winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXI.

Eleven years of mixed reactions and Vince McMahon has steadfastly refused to turn his golden child into a bad guy. Even in an era like the 1980s, a massive star like Hulk Hogan outstayed his welcome as a face quicker than that. You could argue that Hogan had crowd support for the entire of his babyface run, which was over a decade, but when he did turn heel in 1996 to form the New World Order, it freshened him up in totally unexpected ways.

Cena’s mixed reaction is very clear every time he makes his way to the ring. The crowd happily chant “John Cena sucks” along with his theme music and there’s a very clear divide between the men in the audience and the kids. Which is why Cena has remained a babyface for as long as he has. WWE’s market isn’t what it used to be during more successful periods. At the moment they are catering to their core audience, which is kids.

Kids who buy WWE merchandise and cheer on the traditional crowd favourites like Cena and Roman Reigns. The reactions for these gentlemen on the house show circuit, which is mostly made up of families with children at the forefront, is drastically different than in front of a hardcore wrestling crowd at a TV taping or a PPV.

It’s hard to say why Cena became such a hated figure. There are reasons for it happening that are shared with other names on this list. There’s a feeling among some fans that Cena didn’t deserve to become champion when he did. That his in-ring skill didn’t match the placement of him at the top of the card. Perhaps WWE were partially to blame by selecting certain wrestlers to compete against him. In the early part of Cena’s run on top he was routinely defending against better wrestlers like Christian, Kurt Angle and Shawn Michaels.

All fan favourites regardless of their official alignment. The original theory behind Cena working against these men was for him to improve and grow into his role as the companies top dog. It didn’t really play out that way.

Cena is not an isolated incident and since the late 1990s a lot of McMahon’s chosen babyfaces have not received the kind of reactions he was hoping for. Usually people drawing heat were turned heel though. Including Batista when he was brought back in 2014. He was positioned as the top babyface despite being away from wrestling for three years, something that traditionally annoys wrestling fans. Listen to the reactions during Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg when both men were leaving wrestling at WrestleMania XX. Massive anger was levelled at both guys for their decisions. Even the Rock got heat for leaving and going Hollywood to the point where they had to turn him heel and make him behave like an entitled actor.

While Cena has been an isolated case in terms of his longevity as a hated babyface what happens if Vince McMahon is serious about persisting with Reigns? What if McMahon wants to build his company around Roman going forward? The one thing that stands against Roman is the declining television ratings, and the associated advertising dollars that come along with that. If the ratings continue to sink, is it going to be considered the fault of Reigns?

It’s really no fault of his own that Vince McMahon wants to push him so hard but the modern era is one where there is so much choice that persistently giving the fans the same guy, when they clearly don’t want him in that position, is eventually going to turn more eyes away from the product.

Vince McMahon’s stubbornness has long been one of his best traits. If he wasn’t determined to smash the territories and go global then wrestling may have fizzled out all together in the 1990s. Different entertainment mediums could have scooped up the wrestling fans and there would be nothing left but small time regional promotions without television.

If McMahon hadn’t been so determined to get crossover appeal and compete against those outside of wrestling we wouldn’t have WrestleMania. We wouldn’t have the Network. We wouldn’t have NXT. Other promotions have built their own companies to match WWE’s ambition. With no WWE, would there be a New Japan World? With no WWE, would British promotions like PROGRESS and Revolution Pro Wrestling be available On Demand? Would anything we love as wrestling fans really be around in 2016 without Vince McMahon? It’s impossible to tell. One thing is for sure; as long as Vince McMahon is alive he’ll run WWE and he’ll push whoever he chooses, damn it.