50 Ups & 50 Downs For WWE's Decade: The 2010s
6. The Death Of The Top Babyface Role
"Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love watching them bomb".
The "mixed reactions" John Cena received for all of his time on top of WWE broke down the last key tenet of the top babyface's relationship with the audience long after the anti-hero reframed the narrative during the Attitude Era.
Cena represented a noble attempt by the company to try and bring the old-fashioned hero back, but his very existence pulled back the curtain completely. He was a product rather than a persona, and a sizeable portion of the crowd weren't ever going to get behind that. Roman Reigns suffered the same but worse, whilst Seth Rollins struggled so much with the same treatment that he was turned heel months after being given the heroic WrestleMania babyface win.
It used to be the top job in the entire industry - it's now a plain-sight poisoned chalice.