Better John Cena Character: Face or Heel?

[Thriller Ant]

This is not a "Czena sux" thread, or a thread to bitch about "how he nowz only 5 movez." This is to discuss the characters he played, not about his in-ring skills or how much you hate him.

As we all know, Cena has had two basic gimmicks during his time in the WWF/E. His first real gimmick was a heel battle rapping thug from the streets. He would battle rap his opponents, often belittling them and the city that he was performing in. He often used so called "cheap heat" to get boos, but was very successful at getting pretty good heat. He was clearly doing something right, as he was a solid midcard heel who jumped around the main event also.

Here is a promo from those days, from his feud with Brock Lesnar.

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He got pretty good heat, and his abilities on the mic shone through in this gimmick.

Eventually, due to the comical nature of most of his raps, Cena got some cheers. In late 2003, he began a face turn. By WrestleMania XX in March of '04, Cena was a solid, over face and defeated Big Show to become U.S. champion. Finally, in 2005, the megapush was on. He began his feud with JBL that really began proving that Cena was a credible threat. He defeated JBL to become WWE Champion at WM 21, and debuted the WWE Title belt we have today. From there, he has become the most marketable star in the company, and, dare I say, Hogan-esque babyface.

For comparisons sake, here is a promo from Cena before facing Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 23:

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So I ask you, WrestleZone, which Cena incarnation was better for you: Thug or Babyface?

 

[Viola Moonlight]

Since the wording in the title thread asks which is the better John Cena CHARACTER... Im going to vote for the heel.

Even though his current "face" run has achieved many upon many titles & huge success for the man, going as far as Cena being branded the face of WWE [especially outside the walls of the wrestling community]... this has been done before. Hulk Hogan is one example. He had the same principles that John Cena currently possesses. Not saying its a bad thing, just that the "face" John Cena lacks a specific character.

On the other hand, the "heel" John Cena was a defined character. His charisma & mic skills were hard to compete against during his Dr. of Thugonomics reign. He performed well in drawing hatred towards & from the crowd whilst he spent time as being a "heel" character. For the "face" Cena, even though he is intended to be cheered & is mega-pushed via WWE & the media as being a true hero... Cena can't seem to get the whole crowd to cheer him on a consistent basis. Yes Cena has spent more time face then he has heel & yes it is really hard to keep the fans of today liking a face/heel character for lengthy periods of time... but the time it took the fans to start booing Cena during his face run took a lot less time then normal. For comparisons sakes [quote unqoute Thriller] say, Edge's heel run when the fans started cheering for him. Cena mainy got pops as a heel cause of his rap battles... if you eliminated the rap battles, I guarantee the fans wouldnt be giving pops to Cena for a while longer or as frequently. So, the heel character was better for John Cena... but that does not mean he should revert back to being a thug.

On a side note, so far... Cena "face" & Cena "heel" have been very successful endeavours where John can easily pull off both. This is one of the reasons why John Cena deserves to be in the Main Event & have his mega-push.

 

[The Holy One]

For me, It would be his babyface role. Though he does play both very nicely, I think he is naturally a face as his ring psychology is better than as a heel and his promos seem to have more passion than his heel ones. The fans go crazy everytime he does the five-knuckle shuffle. Plus in his heel days, He was still green in the ring as he debut just a year ago. He has improved a lot since that time which is why he's one my favorite wrestlers today.

 

[The Roid Rage]

Okay, now I know this isn't one of the options but I have another one. I didn't really care for the heel gimmick he had before, and I am okay with him as is, he has earned my respect. I however think there is something else that will be better than both.

The John Cena of the future that will at some point turn heel. I think that will be my favorite gimmick for John Cena. It will happen at some point, after some time he will loose babyface value and it will be time for a heel turn just like Hogan did. That is when I think we will all get to see the best of John Cena. I can't wait for it, when it happens it is going to be the biggest shock since Hogan turned, and more than likely cement his place in WWE history, as if he already hasn't done that?


So, here and now I place in effect a third option. John Cena Future Heel Turn. Obviously you can't officially vote on the poll, but you can voice it if you agree, and I would appreciate it if you did.

 

[hlhbk]

I am going to vote for his Heel character. That was the only one that was bareable.

 

[Fishburger]

For me it has to be his heel character because I actually used to look forward to his matches to see who he'd bad mouth and take the piss out of and I thought his thug gimmick was so much better than the Superman gimmick he has now.

All he does in his promo's now is some big speech on how he's gonna rise to the top and overcome all the odds and is pretty much the same old shit heard week in week out.
He tries too hard to be funny aswell to get a reaction from the kids whereas he didnt give a fuck what people thought in his thug gimmick and was far more entertaining for it.

So that is my reason why I prefer Cena's heel gimmick and hope to God he goes back to it someday.

 

[Chill]

First I have no problem with John Cena and second I preferred him as a heel, especially his early work with the whole hip hop gimmick. I think he was able to demonstrate a unique side of his personality (WWE didn't have anyone like this at the time) during this period and this gimmick is ultimately responsible for getting him over with the fans.

I think when he was a heel and when he cut promos in the form of a rap on his opponents, that he really came across as an antagonist and you could believable that his opponents wanted to beat the crap out of him because of all the bad mouthing he was doing on them. In saying that, I understand that the hip hop gimmick had to be eventually dropped. Firstly, I think it was necessary in order for Cena to truly be taken seriously as a top flight star. Secondly, it was necessary because there would only have been so long that Cena could have sustained a personna based around a rap star before it would have gotton stale and arguably quite annoying.

Overall, I liked the heel hip hop Cena and this was probably the period when I enjoyed him most but I understand why that gimmick was ultimately dropped. Another point I would like to mention is that while I prefer Cena as a heel, I totally understand why they are keeping him as a face....he is the company's top star, undeniably a kid favourite (it's important that he is face since this is the core demographic they are currently targeting) and he shifts more merchandise than any other competitor of his generation. So business wise it would probably be a poor decision to turn him heel at the moment.

In saying that, if they were to turn him heel I think it would freshen up the Cena character, he could cut some great heel promos 'attacking' the fans who currently boo him anyway and it could generally freshen up WWE programming. But for now, he's fine as he is I suppose.

 

[Nate DaMac]

I was entertained a little more by the heel persona. I like him in both roles, I just prefered him when he did the raps. I used to get a good laugh out of him. His current persona comes off a bit cheesy at times. I still enjoy him. I do feel that if not for the PG rating, Cena could still be a funny guy! He was for a bit before all this kid oriented shit took over.

 

[Doomsday Device]

Heel.

We've been seeing the same from Cena since Wrestlemania 21. With the exception of a new shirt or armband.

Sadly since things are just about the money right now for Vince, he probably fears that his Cena merchandise might go down with the kids if there was a heel turn.

I understand that Cena is simply doing what he's been told,to be limited in the ring and whatever.

Not to compare these two, and not to rewrite history. But I wonder if they did something like they did with the Rock, back in 2001 and 2002. The Rock was doing movies and fans were starting to turn on him, Rock said something along the lines of "You people dont appreciate me" and basically turned heel and it played out great. I dont think its a bad idea to do the same with Cena.

 

[Thriller Ant]

For me it has to be his heel character because I actually used to look forward to his matches to see who he'd bad mouth and take the piss out of and I thought his thug gimmick was so much better than the Superman gimmick he has now.

All he does in his promo's now is some big speech on how he's gonna rise to the top and overcome all the odds and is pretty much the same old shit heard week in week out.
He tries too hard to be funny aswell to get a reaction from the kids whereas he didnt give a fuck what people thought in his thug gimmick and was far more entertaining for it.

So that is my reason why I prefer Cena's heel gimmick and hope to God he goes back to it someday.

You know why it is all the same? He is a babyface. His job is to be the ultimate good guy. His promos are intended to get the crowd pumped for his match and put over his opponent. And yeah, he may not be making crotch jokes anymore, but he does a good job being funny. His back-and-forth with Triple H about hobbits on Monday was pretty funny.

The reason he didn't care what people thought in his heel gimmick was because he was a heel! His job was to get people to boo him, and that's what he did. His job now is to be the clean-cut, good guy, face of the company. You can't call yourself a wrestling fan if you hate on a guy who does his job well just because you don't like it.

 

[Thriller Ant]

We've been seeing the same from Cena since Wrestlemania 21. With the exception of a new shirt or armband.

People who say this piss me off by how close minded they are. Yeah, Cena has been the babyface since WM21. But, it works! We haven't anyone be this successful with this type of character since Hogan back in the day.

Just for comparison's sake, let's see how long some guys have been using their current gimmick:

Edge: He has been the crazed, obsessive heel since fall of '04, right around the same time as Cena moved into his current character

Undertaker: Taker hasn't really changed at all since his return to the Deadman persona at WM 20, a whole year longer than Cena.

Randy Orton: Heel since the Road to WrestleMania 21 where he faced the Undertaker.

Rey Mysterio: Hasn't changed at all since debuting the summer before WM 19

I could go on and on. The point I'm trying to make is, when something is working, you don't change it. And when it comes to Cena, guys with his charisma and ability to make an impact outside of the world of pro wrestling are very rare, and Vince is doing the best thing for the company by taking full advantage of what he has in John Cena.

 

[InstantPhenomenal]

I am not a Cena fan, but i chose his face gimmick. What did Cena really do as a heel? He rapped and won the U.S. title. As a face Cena has won the Tag Team titles (Batista and HBK), U.S. title, WWE title, and the World title.