10 Reasons John Cena Is This Generation's Mitsuharu Misawa
2. He's The Company Ace
John Cena has transcended the booking of World Champion at this point in his career. It no longer matters whether he’s in the World Title picture or not when he’s wrestling; what matters is that he puts on the best performances on each show.
This makes him the company ace, the man around whom the promotion is built, and on whose shoulders the promotion rests. Cena has held this position since at least 2009, and since then, whether he was pursuing the WWE Championship or not, Cena was main-eventing marquee shows and drawing in huge crowds.
This is the exact same position that Misawa held in AJPW for the better part of a decade. Throughout the 1990s, Misawa was AJPW's ace, without a doubt. He was putting on the best matches on every card, he was the most versatile wrestler, and he kept getting the biggest reactions from the audience.
Moreover, his matches were almost always main-event-level contests, even if he wasn’t wrestling for the World Championship. As such, he was the ace of AJPW, and for a long time, the ace of NOAH as well, as it was his name that drew in larger crowds for that promotion’s shows.
In the end, both of these men were/are outstanding wrestlers who gave everything they had to the wrestling business. And for that, they deserve our utmost respect.