10 Reasons Why John Cena’s WWE Legacy Is Disastrous
6. Same Match John
There are two typical Big Match John Matches: opposite a monstrous hoss, he tends to sell and sell hard for long stretches before mounting a suspicious comeback, one reminiscent of Hulk Hogan's but devoid of the magical, symbiotic psychology of a crowd united behind it. When faced with a pure wrestler in the opposite corner, Cena tends to level up to them athletically, building to a crescendo of finisher kick-outs so dramatic that the rote structure is effectively obscured.
That's a bit reductive - his matches with CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were richer and more layered than his standard fare - but not altogether untrue. That last genre, the hollow special effects blockbuster, has replaced the slow, impactful methodical slog as the go-to WWE "big match". We have reached a point at which the typical WWE match is an almost polite exchange of signature and finishing moves within the final third. There are so many variations of the match on any given episode of RAW that one bleeds meaninglessly into the next. If a road agent challenged two acts to perform a match with no finisher kick-outs, they'd likely struggle. It is that pervasive.
It worked for Cena - the layout made best use of his divisive standing among fans, uniting them in an easy dramatic shortcut - and because it worked for Cena, it must work for everybody else.