Ranking Who Was Really The Man In Wrestling Every Year 1990-2020
12. 2009 - John Cena
Yet another year in which John Cena was wrestling's unanimous and objective top drawing card, the superb in-ring work of Chris Jericho and Hiroshi Tanahashi was not - yet - recognised at the box office.
Quite appropriately, for what was a deadening decade of repetition in the U.S. mainstream, the worst in its modern history, it was a year of diminished returns. Cena had worked all of his major rivals to far more artistic success in years previous.
A Royal Rumble match with John Bradshaw Layfield was entirely forgettable fare drastically removed from the gripping, shortcut-laden bloodbath they had worked years ago. A reprise of his excellent feud with Edge followed similar beats, but wasn't similarly electric in the ring. The blow-off was tremendous, but hardly inspiring.
His programme with the Big Show was worthless. A mini-feud with the Miz, somehow, was exponentially worse. The shortcuts had to come out, for his never-ending series with Randy Orton, to make it halfway interesting.
Stale but moderately successful: think WWE now, only without that last bit.