If John Cena was just going to run through three men (including Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury) en route to victory, then why bother his number one contenders spot on the line? It just was another meaningless stipulation tacked on to a match to create interest. Cena is a 15-time world champion. Are fans really supposed to care if a guy who gets title shots thrown at him almost monthly loses one opportunity? Last week in a column, a scenario was proposed where Cena could lose his title shot without having be pinned, thus still remaining strong and then going to the Royal Rumble to try to get his shot back, only to be eliminated by Rusev and kick off their rumored WrestleMania feud. It also would have generated some interest in the next couple weeks of WWE programming as the company tries to determine who will face Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship (remember that title?) at Royal Rumble. Instead, we will now get the third straight title match between Cena and Lesnar, their fourth match since Lesnar returned to WWE in 2012. It will no doubt be a solid match, but its just more of the same from a company that desperately needs to try something different after a deeply disappointing 2014.
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.
