1. By The Time John Cena Got His Win Back, It Was Too Late
WrestleMania 29 in April 2013 was the culmination of the two year story between John Cena, the top star in WWE and The Rock, a legend and movie megastar. I can understand Rock liking the idea of coming in to do a two year program culminating with him putting over the younger guy and riding off into the sunset, but sadly Rock didn't have his fingers on the pulse of wrestling and didn't understand that the audience wouldn't react to it quite as well as he'd hoped. By the time both men got to New Jersey for WrestleMania 29, the fans were already tired of the battle between the part timer and Mr. Hustle, Loyalty, Respect. Everyone saw the 'Once In A Lifetime' match in Miami and nobody was clamouring for a re-run. But we got it and, in the end, Cena pinned The Rock to win the WWE Title and Rock embraced him and raised his hand, effectively passing the torch. The two issues are, firstly, Cena had been the top guy for eight years by this point and so didn't really need the torch passed and, secondly, if that was what they wanted to do then it should've been done in Miami with one match and a conclusive ending. Rock's sudden endorsement of Cena made zero sense as Cena portrayed all the characteristics that Rock disliked about him even more by 2013. In the end, John Cena came out of this programme an incredibly damaged character. His flaws had been pointed out and exposed, he'd been beaten by a legend and when he finally won and had the torch passed, people felt the same way about him that they did going into the rivalry in 2011. After Rock left, Cena had moments of greatness like his SummerSlam main event with Daniel Bryan in 2013 but, on the whole, he never really recovered and made strides to become a truly popular babyface again until he started defending the US title on RAW every week and having killer matches with a variety of opponents. I'm not by any stretch a Cena hater and I enjoyed his and Rock's work during their feud, I just think WWE did both of them a disservice in the presentation of their program, and while it broke box-office records it also damaged WWE's biggest asset.
Kenny is a successful podcast host with Inside The Ropes, promotes exciting Q&A events in the UK with the likes of Sting and DDP, has interviewed the big guns like Foley, Jericho, Bruno and Austin and enjoys cheese a great deal.
