4 Ups And 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Oct 14th)
2. DOWN- John Cena's Heat
WWE has long since acknowledged the Cena sucks! contingent of its audiences, even playing to them directly during broadcasts. This hasnt stopped WWE from trying to offset the booing by playing up his involvement with Make-A-Wish and through other efforts. But one pattern that has emerged during the past year is becoming more apparent week by week. With Roman Reigns down with an injury, Dean Ambrose is the hottest rising star on the roster, followed by former Shield teammate Seth Rollins. So who is Cena currently battling? Cena makes no bones about how the crowd loves Ambrose and chants his name. Right now, he either appears onscreen with Ambrose or references him if hes alone. In short, Cena has hitched himself to Ambrose (and Rollins, but extension). Monday night, we saw this in full effect. A good argument can be made that Cena is still the most marketable star in WWE, and putting him with Ambrose and Rollins elevates them, but as mentioned before, there is a pattern. Earlier this year, Cena was matched up against Bray Wyatt, who at the time was one of the more intriguing characters on the roster. Wyatt was thrust into an angle and a three-PPV series with Cena which Cena won. Before he got injured, Reigns was starting to square off against Cena. Last year, Cena chose Daniel Bryan as his opponent for SummerSlam and spent a month talking him up. Again, Cena is WWEs biggest star, so matching up against him can be considered an elevation. But its not an accident that each of these performers were among WWEs most popular superstars at the time. Cena isnt being fed brutes and monsters in the same way that Hulk Hogan was in the 80s. He is matching up against very popular wrestlers, several of whom are (for lack of a better term) good guys as well. Is this being done to elevate younger talent, or to allow Cena to siphon heat from some of the hottest WWE wrestlers at the moment? That is a subjective question for fans to answer.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
