In round four of WrestleTalk’s Top 5 Wars, Oli Davis argues that we’re all wrong about which top WWE star should turn heel. Just because Roman Reigns is Vince McMahon’s flavour of the month, that shouldn’t make everyone forget how frustrating John Cena’s decade+ run as the company’s top babyface has been. According to Oli, Cena needs to turn heel immediately…
5. HE’S PRACTICALLY A HEEL ALREADY
To half the audience, John Cena is already the most hated man in the company. Well, maybe tied with Roman Reigns, but Cena’s been at it a whole lot longer.
A lot of his promos are specifically targeted at annoying the fans that dislike him. His scripted, immature comedy, the ‘Never Give Up’ theme – even the way he wrestles is geared to inciting boos. His five knuckle shuffle is one of WWE’s most obnoxious moves.
The point is, these traits would be fantastic if WWE presented Cena as an out-and-out bad guy. Instead, it traps his character in the awkward middle ground between the two.
4. MIC SKILL
Speaking of Cena’s promos, they are a hell of a reason why he should be turned heel as soon as possible.
As the Doctor of Thuganomics, Cena’s jokey heel raps were genuinely funny. Here’s one:
“I’m gonna hang your ass like a Christmas tree ornament. I’ll whack you more times than a masturbation tournament.”
And here’s another:
“You’ve got hydraulics in your car, you’ve got a sexual sickness. His car bounces up and down because he sits on the stick shift.”
Strangely recurring homosexual undercurrent aside, Cena is a very good talker. You want humour, he’s funny when he’s not scripted. You want intense, there are few better. His promo work as a heel would be out of this world. And you can’t say that about Roman.
3. BECAUSE A DECADE OF THE SAME CHARACTER IS TOO LONG
WWE always likes to talk about how they’re not a rasslin’ show, they’re a TV show. You should watch Raw or Smackdown just like how you do The Walking Dead or RuPaul’s Drag Race…what? It’s always in my Netflix suggested videos.
The thing is, if you look at Raw as an actual TV show with narrative arcs and stories, John Cena is an absolutely terrible character.
Not just because he looks stupid a lot of the time, but because there’s no progression. Cena has been the company’s top babyface since he won the title at Wrestlemania 21. That was in 2005. His character hasn’t evolved for over a decade. And with Raw now three hours, it’s actually more like a century.
Maths was never my strong suit.
Cena needs to turn heel because he’s been stale as a face for far too long. And he need look no further than our reason at number 2.
2. THE HOGAN EFFECT
John Cena’s situation has happened before. A long reigning babyface who the fans began to turn on because they were bored of the good guy act.
His name was Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan had been a face in the WWF since he returned there in 1983. By the time he arrived in WCW in 94, nothing had changed. He was still peddling the Real American gimmick. But then, on the 7th July, 1996, the Hulkster made one of the most shocking turns in wrestling history. After 13 uninterrupted years of being a good guy, he was revealed as the third member of the NWO at WCW’s Bash at the Beach.
This not only turned Hogan into a bad guy, it also turned him into the hottest star in wrestling. Rather than limping on for a few more years as a nostalgia act, the NWO version of Hogan made him the top guy in both the company and the fans’ eyes.
If Cena turns heel, he’ll tap into the same, enormous amount of anticipation that Hogan did. It’s like being cock teased for over a decade. That is going to be some seriously tantric relief.
To find out the top reason why John Cena should turn heel, watch the video above.
Watch Francesca Wood’s Top 5 Reasons Why Roman Reigns Should Turn Heel here.
