6 Ups And Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Feb 23)

By Scott Carlson /

2. What€™s Next For Cena?

Apparently, John Cena€™s WWE career is almost over. By passing out to Rusev€™s Accolade and technically losing by submission, Cena€™s €œNever Give Up€ towels are now a sham and he€™ll lose millions of dollars in revenue, thus forcing his imminent retirement. That has to be the reason for the dire warnings and questions surrounding Cena€™s appearance Monday night. €œWhere does he go from here?€ asked Michael Cole. He lost a match. One match. Surely Cena can recover from such a devastating defeat. He somehow recovered from his WrestleMania XXVIII loss to the Rock and SummerSlam 2014 loss to Brock Lesnar. So this should be no different, right?Yes, the announcers need to make it seem like Cena is playing with borrowed time, but the best way to have done that would have been to have Rusev go full Lesnar on him and dismantle him. But even as they played up this uncertainty, Cena seemed to shift gears to defending America (a theme not fully explored during the buildup to Fastlane). That probably should have been the angle the entire time, not whether Father Time is catching up to the 37-year-old superstar.