10 Reasons Why John Cena Heel Turn Would Be ‘Best For Business’

1. Because The Inevitable €˜About Face€™ Will Be White Hot!

If Cena were to spend a serious amount of time as a heel, it would build nostalgia for his time spent as a babyface. Make no mistake; nostalgia is BIG in wrestling. For nostalgia, wrestling fans are willing to overlook almost any indiscretion on the part of wrestlers or promoters. For the nostalgia dollar, promoters are willing to swallow what little pride they have left and start raking in that fat nostalgic cash. Hogan, for his part, rode a wave of nostalgia in 2002 (this writer even had the t-shirt!) and even non-wrestler Mr. T got in on the act for this year€™s WrestleMania celebrations. Basically, if it happened when we were kids, we€™re suckers for it (look at the grosses on those ridiculous live action Transformers movies if you don€™t believe me). For a bunch of supposedly violence-addicted morons, we wrestling fans will get dewy-eyed over almost anything. Give Cena a couple of years as a top heel and then listen to the crowd pop as he returns, rejuvenated, as the All-American good guy once again. It worked for Hogan, it will work for Cena. In wrestling, characters need to change from time to time. This is an era largely without territories. One cannot simply be booked to bow out in a €˜loser leaves town€™ match and then show up a few hundred miles away with the same gimmick and getup. For better or for worse, those days are well and truly gone. Today, WWE wrestlers can be fixtures of TV shows and Pay Per View events for a decade at a time (maybe even two if they€™re lucky). Ergo, things need to be €˜shaken up€™ every now and again, if only just to keep the stories interesting. Let€™s take a look at Kane (the real-life Glen Jacobs) as a particularly worthy example. Kane the character debuted in 1997, billed as the Undertaker€™s horrifically scarred, homicidal and pyromaniacal* demon sibling. Amazingly, even though he was initially saddled with a bright red Lycra jumpsuit (with matching gimp mask) and intimidated his foes via a dubious combination of a voicebox and a Michael Jackson-esque leather glove, he€™s still going strong; such is the talent of Glen Jacobs. Kane was main eventing WWF PPVs in 1997, but the last PPV he main evented was Extreme Rules earlier this month, that€™s a near 20-year run at, or around, the top of the biggest wrestling company in the world. How has he done this? Well, in addition to being an accomplished, polished performer, Jacobs has varied his act quite wildly over the years. During his tenure in the WWE, Kane has been a living nightmare, a straight man, a henchman, a corporate sellout, a psycho, a freak, a jilted lover, a vengeful bastard, a social klutz and even (from time to time) a comedy character. Over the years, Kane has been unmasked, re-masked and unmasked again and yet, throughout it all, he has remained a top-level talent in the WWE. Variety, as opposed to hellfire and chokeslams, then, would appear to be the spice of Kane€™s professional life. Kane, like Cena, is a simple, one-note character on paper. He€™s the psychotic pyromaniac who likes to grab guys by the throat and then set them on fire. However, because he has, if you€™ll pardon the pun, worn so many masks over his career, he usually seems new and interesting in a way that Cena generally does not. Look at Cena€™s character dispassionately. What do you see? Hard working guy, he supports the armed forces. He likes rap but never swears and would never join a gang or anything like that. Clean cut. Good to kids, probably nice to his mum, too. All of that is fine, except that, after 10+ years of it, it simply isn€™t interesting anymore. So, in the words of the late, great Owen Hart €œenough is enough and its time for a change€. - CQ By the way, neither €˜Pyromaniacal€™ or €˜badassery€™ are real words, but they really ought to be!