1. John Cena Answered The Challenge Of Being A Mid-Carder Again
The most important challenge in the US Title Open Challenge era of John Cena's career was the challenge to be able to get motivated to wrestle largely unproven at the main event level in WWE talents on a weekly basis. Moreover, the ability to have matches with them that inspired in them the desire to want to do better and work harder than they ever had in the company before is what made the era special. John Cena truly became a good wrestler at the level at which he has been pushed in this era because he's met the challenge of being a legend of circumstance, but not yet one of consequence. When we watch Cena wrestle Seth Rollins at SummerSlam, we finally get to see the match that ideally makes Cena -- some 16 years later -- the "legendary" performer he's been sadly pushed as, but underwhelming against the standard, all along.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
