10 Wrestlers The Fans Turned On

10. John Cena

Let’s start with the most obvious example.

From late 2003, John Cena’s ascent to the top of WWE was inevitable. As the ‘Doctor of Thuganomics’ he became the most over babyface in the company, with his street smarts and freestyle raps pulling the entire WWE Universe behind him. But when he won the WWE Championship in 2005, something changed.

Positioned against established crowd favourites like Chris Jericho, or under-utilised team players like Christian, the fans quickly bored of what would soon become the ‘Super Cena’ booking, where despite being against the odds, Cena would always rise above it and win. It didn’t help that Cena certainly wasn’t the big match player he would later become and that better in-ring wrestlers were fed to him on a monthly basis.

Although beloved now by the fanbase when he returns, which is great considering how hard he worked inside and outside the ring for the company, the fans never came round to John during his run as a full-time talent. WWE dressed it up as being ‘divisive’, but the clear split was that he embodied the PG-era and was too kid friendly to be seen as cool in the eyes of the adult fan base.

Pushing a talent relentlessly as a babyface despite a clear rejection by the fans is a harsh lesson learnt for WWE. Or so we thought…