10 Wrestling Nightmares That Almost Came True
7. WWE Almost Released John Cena
The origin story of how John Cena got over is such a bleak and monumental self-own that it's a wonder WWE willingly acknowledges it on various retrospective documentaries.
Cena was the face of 'Ruthless Aggression', which itself is proof that the name of this "era" was as sh*tty as the era itself. Vince fell in love with those two words for about two weeks in 2002, John Cena apparently embodied them, and then his career declined so rapidly that he was almost fired before freestyle rapping on a tour bus in earshot of Stephanie McMahon.
This really should have acted as evidence that WWE's scripted promo model - which, since it was introduced, has never once led to a consistent uptick in popularity - was terrible.
Even those who didn't subjectively rate Cena in-ring with his sloppy, flimsy blockbuster style - nor on the microphone with his unfunny and counterproductive promo approach - recognise that this would have represented a nightmare scenario. With Cena on top, WWE was able to reinvent itself under a family-friendly, philanthropic veneer with which they became vastly more appealing to sponsors.
In fact, Cena was so effective that the commercial revenue generated ultimately outweighed fan-driven metrics, massively so, meaning it didn't matter how terrible those scripted promos were.
Without Cena, things might have seemed very bleak indeed.