Well, sort of. He's main eventing, but a "main eventer" generally means those who are established in the upper card and are almost always in the main event scene. Sheamus is too new to be called one yet. Having the championship puts him up there right now, but once he loses it I bet he will get knocked down and will have to make his way back up to main event level. We'll see.
Well you don't know that. If Sheamus gets enough heat from now until the time he loses the champion, he could be pretty well established as a main-event mega-heel. They could throw him at Kofi, they could turn him face and throw him at Orton, perhaps Batista on Smackdown, and then bury him by throwing him at DX. I mean, for all of that NOTHING they've done for him two and three weeks ago, he got a surprising amount of heat on Monday, and I could only imagine it growing as time goes on.
I agree they get boring if too many are done. After a good "respect" title match between two faces, it's nice to see a "revenge" feud between a face and heel due to the heel's actions instead because it's different and brings out the rage in faces like Cena. However, are you seeing Cena VS Sheamus as both a respect feud and a revenge feud? I'm not quite seeing it onscreen, but I see the point you are making if so.
No, I mean with Cena, EVERYTHING is a respect feud. He tried to do it with Orton too. "Two men on the fight of their lives, brothers in the ring, yadda yadda," while Orton was talking about kicking him in the skull and ending his career. Cena does that with EVERYBODY, and attempted to do it before Sheamus put him through a table a SECOND time when he was going about being able to take Sheamus seriously after the contract signing. It was what I was talking about earlier. I've become jaded with Cena. I'm indifferent to everything he does.
The JBL thing was over by the road to Wrestlemania. Jericho took the IC title and lost the MITB match. JBL had that pointless feud with Finlay. It was 2 months later that the HBK stuff started because HBK VS Jericho didn't even begin until after HBK's Batista feud ended after Backlash.
Well I'm sure they were waiting for the HBK/Flair thing to end before they set up HBK/Jericho. Like I said, all they were doing with Jericho was setting up his character as an intelligent, yet violently temperamental guy. You get in his way and he'll choke you out with a wire. Then he was floating in limbo for a while until HBK/Flair ended, then they used that as a springboard to launch HBK/Jericho. And HBK/Batista was pretty much a set up. I actually thought it was going to be set up as a three-way feud, but Batista kind of backed out at the end, and it just ended up being an HBK/Jericho feud in the end.
HBK VS Jericho was definitely a main event feud. He had been in the upper card before his return though. Undisputed Champion reign, and his feud with Cena in 05 to name a couple.
That's the point I've been trying to make. The dude is a born main-eventer. Even if he's in the mid-card, he'll do what he can to make people hear his name, and sometimes, if he gets good enough, he'll turn his upper-midcard feud into the main event, and the real main event gets drowned out. Happened many times in WCW where people were more interested in what he was doing rather than what "swerve" Hogan was coming up with that week.
Indeed they do. I don't think they would do it this early though. Vince brought in Hart because they need to make sure no one watches Impact (I'll still watch both), but he probably still doesn't see them as big enough of a threat to turn Cena. TNA would have to reach WCW's level of a threat first, that would make more sense.
I see what you mean now. Yeah, Bret Hart was the first shot at TNA, but this really isn't over. I don't think the WWE is going to toy with TNA, because they've seen what can happen if they don't take their competition seriously, no matter how small it is. If they're planning on a Cena feud now, they're going to do it, regardless of how well TNA does on Mondays. They're not going to waste any time obliterating TNA. I don't think a Cena heel turn is going to happen RIGHT now, but IF they're hinting at a heel turn with his recent promos, then they're taking their time with it until people are used to seeing Bret around.
I'm predicting a HBK/Hart feud with Cena butting in if he turns heel. He probably won't need a gimmick change either. He could go after Bret for running away from a company, and by proxy, running away from a fight, not having respect for the company and his fans by leaving for however-many-years, etc.
think that makes sense. It could be used as a way to keep fans away from TNA, but I still say that turning Cena should be a last resort. What if they turned him, but had no top face to replace him? Kofi's not quite ready yet, DX is in the tag title scene, and MVP's.... well... MVP.
Keep in mind that there's a draft coming up. He's got Christian, Batista, Rey Mysterio, Undertaker, DX (I don't see why he couldn't feud with them)... THEN they could spend that time building Kofi, MVP, Evan Bourne, anyone.
I get tired of the IWC claiming that every wrestling fan boos or hates Cean; it's simply not true. I hear cheering at live events. I hear cheering when I go to my local sports bar to see the ppvs. I see people wearing Cena merchandise. There are boos, but it's not like the whole audience is rioting at every show because they loathe Cena so much.
This has been discussed time and time again. You can look at the ratings of RAW and see what they've been like every time Cena's main-eventing Raw with one of his samey-feuds with some random guy... or Orton. They just haven't been entertaining. We see the same people all. the. time. and it gets to the point where even the casual fan is getting tired of it.
The problem with smarks who are like "IWC this and IWC that," is that they don't understand that this is JUST a T.V. show that can be compared to any other T.V. show, or even a sport.
Take football for instance.
What would you think if you took the Patriots and put them up against the Dolphins every single week? Sure, for the hardcore fans, it may be entertaining discussion fodder for a few weeks, but then you start to wonder why they're doing it, because it stopped being entertaining after, like, the third game.
What if House was dealing with the same disease week after week?
What if Fringe just had an arc where they forgot about William Bell and started looking for him again?
There are fans who will cheer regardless, but people get tired of it, and the ratings reflect that.