10 Things WWE Could Learn From Kenta Kobashi's Career

8. Booking A Babyface That Doesn't Get Boring Over Time

One of the biggest criticisms of John Cena is that he€™s a stale babyface and doesn€™t change at all, despite being incredibly boring as a character. Even if he€™s still wildly popular with younger viewers, he rarely changes his promo style, wrestling psychology or personality. In fact, the only thing that he really changes is the colour of his garish merchandise. The ironic thing here is that Kenta Kobashi was a career babyface. He was such a straightforward good guy that Cena himself would tell the guy to show some teeth on occasions. So why is it that Kobashi was able to be consistently entertaining to a wide variety of demographics for twenty-five years, while Cena has received such vitriolic backlash as a babyface for only ten years? Because Kobashi never got boring as a character, that's why. He showed anger when he was deceived by duplicitous enemies, he got over with his sheer toughness alone, and he let his wide variety of signature moves to the talking for him. That€™s how he managed to stay as a babyface for so many years without ever losing his spot as a top draw. By acting human instead of as a superhero (i.e. having genuine human emotions and flaws), he was able to be portrayed as a superhero without actually becoming a comic book character.