I Think I Can Now See Cena As A Heel

[JJ15776]

Before the two man power trip and before HHH got hurt, the fans were slowly starting to cheer for HHH against Austin. Actually there was a steel catch match where Austin was crushing the Rock and HHH was a heel at the time and when his music hit, the fans WENT CRAZY for HHH because they thought he was going to go after Austin. As most of us know he ended up attacking The Rock and thats how the two man power trip began. I believe that may have been the night after WM17.

It was. And to this day I still reference that night whenever the topic of "worst booking decisions" comes up. He'd just had an amazing fued with Austin (culminating in the legendary 3 Stages of Hell match, which Triple H won), then had his first great match with Taker, both of which had won him some fan support. With Austin turning heel, it was a great time to elevate your hottest worker to being your top face - remember, Rock left for 3 months to go film The Mummy Returns right after that cage match. Instead they took their hottest worker, killed his momentum, made him the second banana in a stable and put the midcard title on him. They had no top face. It was disgusting.

Now, that doesn't mean they should turn Cena heel. What's going to happen? Yeah, the kids are going to start booing him...but the adults - the people that are booing him now - are just going to cheer him. What do you do then? Turn him back face? He's fine the way he is. You can't cater your booking decisions to the vocal minority that is the IWC. You have to do what's best for your company, and keeping Cena face is definitely best for the company. It's great in theory to turn him heel so the fans can get behind somebody that will avenge Cena, but the WWE doesn't have anybody that's ready to do that right now. Orton? He's not that kind of face, sorry.

While I'm responding, somebody brought up Hulk Hogan...that's a great comparison, except that it's actually a terrible one. You're right that he was at the pinnacle of his popularity, other than the fact that he was about as far from the pinnacle of his popularity as he's been in the last 30 years. He'd grown completely stale in two companies. WWF fans didn't miss him and WCW fans were quickly getting bored of the same character they had seen for over a decade. They grew tired of his politics, culminating in the ludicrous "contract clause" title loss via DQ. After the abombination that was the "Alliance to end Hulkamania" storyline and match at Uncensored, WCW basically took Hogan off TV. Nobody wanted to see him. When was the last time the WWE chose to keep Cena off Raw for weeks at a time? They didn't even do it when they had a built in storyline with him being fired. Hogan basically hadn't been seen for 3 months when he turned heel. Cena is still selling merchandise, getting people to watch, and getting great crowd reactions(even if it's a mix of cheers and boos, everybody is still reacting). So yeah, bringing Hogan up in a discussion about Cena...relevant? Not so much.

 

[DarkLordFett]

Hogan went to WCW. WCW fans were TOTALLY different than WWE fans. Bash at the Beach people were throwing stuff, that doesn't happen with the WWE fans. Such a huge difference between southern fans and northern.

It was like Hogan came into their house and beat up their dad (Flair). Cena is still very loved by most people and is still the most consistently over guy in the company, something Hogan was not. Cena is generally a nice guy in real life, Hogan is not (from most accounts).

A cena heel turn, especially before going against the Rock would be a bad move. You NEED Cena as a face vs Rock for this dream match to work. If it's a heel Cena, then Rock may as well be going against someone else. You can give Cena more intensity, but don't change the basis of his character.

Having a heel Cena vs Rock would be like advertising a huge juicy cheeseburger and have it actually be a cheese veggie-burger. Yea, it's a huge burger, but it's not the original and what you were thinking.

BTW, why does anyone want to turn Cena heel anyways? What's the storyline/character/motive/logic behind that?

But, Hogan did turn heel. Or was turned heel because of the heat he was getting. And what happened? It changed the landscape of wrestling again. If Hogan could turn heel, then anyone could turn heel. Austin was a prime example of that. The biggest face of the WWE, the man every blue collar worker loved because he gave the middle fingers to his boss and told him exactly what he thought, turned his back on all of those fans. And eventually, Austin redeemed himself and was bigger than ever. Hell, when Hogan came back to the WWE, he was bigger than ever, even as a heel. He could even use the Hollywood gimmick and get over. It was so powerful that the fans turned on Rocky at their Mania match.

Cena was a heel very early in his tenure at the WWE. He's got so much heat already from half the crowd that it just about makes sense to turn him. Maybe a lot of people just want to have an actual reason to boo the guy. I personally think that the controversy would boost the WWE big time. The WTF factor. If Cena doesn't turn heel they're gonna have to bury him for a while to get some heat off him. Change his gimmick. Maybe even his name. This is the first time I've ever seen a WWE Champ that got boo's and cheers all at the same time

 

[TheKingHustla]

This is the biggest thing to me, people boo Cena now, so if he was heel, would people be happy and cheer him? that would defeat the purpose of a heel, or would they still boo him? I think it honestly doesn't matter what Cena is, face, heel, tweener, people are gonna boo him. The people who cheer him now, cenation and the kiddies, will lose more than anyone else would gain, because now, will they cheer a heel? or will they feel betrayed by their hero and have to join the masses in booing him? The scenario would stay exactly the same, only it would be now you have SuperCena screwing over people by using underhanded tactics, on top of being supercena. would that really make people feel better? not really. His three words are hustle, loyalty and respect, and he'd lose all three of those with a heel turn.
I personally don't think its worth losing the fans who love him just to satisfy the fans who hate him now, and will still hate him as a heel.

 

[steven87gill]

It was. And to this day I still reference that night whenever the topic of "worst booking decisions" comes up. He'd just had an amazing fued with Austin (culminating in the legendary 3 Stages of Hell match, which Triple H won), then had his first great match with Taker, both of which had won him some fan support. With Austin turning heel, it was a great time to elevate your hottest worker to being your top face - remember, Rock left for 3 months to go film The Mummy Returns right after that cage match. Instead they took their hottest worker, killed his momentum, made him the second banana in a stable and put the midcard title on him. They had no top face. It was disgusting.

Now, that doesn't mean they should turn Cena heel. What's going to happen? Yeah, the kids are going to start booing him...but the adults - the people that are booing him now - are just going to cheer him. What do you do then? Turn him back face? He's fine the way he is. You can't cater your booking decisions to the vocal minority that is the IWC. You have to do what's best for your company, and keeping Cena face is definitely best for the company. It's great in theory to turn him heel so the fans can get behind somebody that will avenge Cena, but the WWE doesn't have anybody that's ready to do that right now. Orton? He's not that kind of face, sorry.

While I'm responding, somebody brought up Hulk Hogan...that's a great comparison, except that it's actually a terrible one. You're right that he was at the pinnacle of his popularity, other than the fact that he was about as far from the pinnacle of his popularity as he's been in the last 30 years. He'd grown completely stale in two companies. WWF fans didn't miss him and WCW fans were quickly getting bored of the same character they had seen for over a decade. They grew tired of his politics, culminating in the ludicrous "contract clause" title loss via DQ. After the abombination that was the "Alliance to end Hulkamania" storyline and match at Uncensored, WCW basically took Hogan off TV. Nobody wanted to see him. When was the last time the WWE chose to keep Cena off Raw for weeks at a time? They didn't even do it when they had a built in storyline with him being fired. Hogan basically hadn't been seen for 3 months when he turned heel. Cena is still selling merchandise, getting people to watch, and getting great crowd reactions(even if it's a mix of cheers and boos, everybody is still reacting). So yeah, bringing Hogan up in a discussion about Cena...relevant? Not so much.

I actually agree with every single point that you make on Austin's heel turn, particularly the HHH double turn/two man power trip garbage, which in my opinion did more to kill business for WWE than the heel turn itself, which was a good idea, badly executed.

But the biggest issue was that WWE didn't do enough in the 12 months leading into WM17 to build new stars, instead they were relying on their pat-hands and they got burned for it.

Cena's run as a babyface has come to a natural end, the key is to start to build up new faces before they start messing around with Cena's character though, which is exactly what they are doing with the Miz.