John Cena Backstage

[JDX]

Over a long period of time people have debated almost everything about John Cena. Mic skill, in-ring ability, personality, blah blah blah. But I've noticed that in most of the arguements an issue is brought up by the Cena fans that is, from I've seen never repudiated by the Cena haters. and it is that Cena is just doing what he's told. He wins most of the time because he is top guy and him winning means more money for WWE. I agree with this of course but I have a hard time believing that Cena himself doesn't control at least some part of the storylines, monologues, match plans and results he is in. For years this has been argued for guys like HHH, HBK, Hogan, Austin, etc. but not Cena. Even somewhat new ME people like Orton have scandals around them (Mr. Kennedy and Kofi) about how they use their influence to make themselves bigger and others smaller. But Cena has never had this stigma and is seen by most even his haters as a nice guy in real life. Now I'm not saying he's a jerk in real life because I don't know. Making the judgement of whether any wrestler is a nice person based on joking around at a Denny's or being snubbed for an autograph shouldn't and doesn't count. My intention in this thread is try and understand why Cena has been left out of the club so to speak of power players in WWE. Looking back HBK, Nash, Hall, and HHH (The Klique) supposedly ran the locker room anyway they wanted, Hogan both WWE and WCW had total control over his career, HHH married Stephanie to get more power and control, Austin had contractual control of his career, Bret Hart's ego and the Montreal Screwjob, Orton's "temper tantrums" and any other you might think of.

So my main questions are Do you think John Cena is a backstage power player? and if so, why is he not considered to be one by the WWE universe and IWC?

 

[FightOwensFight]

All the others you mention have specific instance or rumors of those issues in the back happening (though your leap of logic that HHH "married Stephanie TO get more power and control" is a bit silly). As far as I know, there havn't been any rumblings or rumors swirling around that Cena pushes himself over others or any of the other stuff you refer to. No doubt he has a say in what he does and doesn't do, but until we hear otherwise, suggesting anything else (like your HHH claim about his marriage) is just stirring the pot and not based in reality.

 

[eltracy632]

I don't see him as a backstage politic guy. Like was said, Vince tells him what to do, he does it. And he never loses his cool in the ring, a la Randy Orton. Now as a person outside of wrestling, I've had the "pleasure" of meeting him twice. Once when he was a nobody fresh off his debut against Kurt Angle, once at Kowloons in Saugus, MA. Both times he was a complete asshole. Hell, his gf at the time acknowledged me the first time, nobody else there even knew who he was. Maybe I caught him on bad days, who knows. Haven't liked him since that day. But at the end of the day, he always does as he's told and works harder then anyone else, that's why he is where he is.

 

[Somewhat Large Gonzalez]

I've never met the guy, and I'm no Cena mark, but I have to admit that he seems like a genuinely nice person. He's loyal to the company that made him an uber-star, he never attracts negative press, and even Jim Cornette has praised him for being easy to work with. So while I don't care for his bionic character, I do like Cena himself.

 

[cboedeker2]

As already stated, the wrestlers that you have named have all had specific things said about them that started rumors. Cena has never had that. I've met the man in person, and there were at least 2,000-3,000 in line to meet him, and he was nice as can be. Not only did he sign everything I had, but he also took my phone and said hi to my friend Cassie when I told him she was upset that she couldn't be there to meet him. As for eltracy632, consider what he was doing, or how he may have been feeling the day that you met him. If you caught him while he was eating his dinner or something like that, then it's expected that he would bee an asshole. If that's not the case, then I guess you just met him on a bad day.

 

[Loveless]

As already stated, the wrestlers that you have named have all had specific things said about them that started rumors. Cena has never had that.

Yep he has. Kennedy cited his involvement in going to McMahon with Orton and making it clear that neither would work with him. At that time Orton didn't have enough pull to get someone with so much potential fired, Cena certainly did though.
I don't believe the guy is as nice as he's portrayed. Very few people ever maintain their place at the topof the WWE without behaving like ********s at some stage.

 

[The 5th Horsemen]

Never met Cena, but the guy has broke the record for granting wishes for the Make-a-Wish foundation if I'm not mistaken. I had a Aunt work with Make-a-Wish and she'll tell you some of the stars can be a-holes, but if they're granting a lot they are usually pretty good people. I'll take it that Cena is a good guy and a good guy backstage.

Until you meet people for yourself it's hard to judge. Take my Avatar picture for instance. I've met everyone of those guys. ALL were extremely nice and humble and enjoyable to talk to EXCEPT Barry Windham. At the time. Windham was on the rise with the Horsemen, but I believe he bought the hype too much himself and thought of himself a little too well. Now when you look back at those guys..... Ric, Arn, Tully, and JJ to some extent have a better legacy in professional wrestling than Windham.

 

[Scuba 06]

The way the business is, if they can get any dirt to bury you with they will. You just never hear anything about Cena pulling strings, or being hard to work with. The guy busts his ass every night in the ring and out. This guy bleeds WWE, its as if he would do anything to make the company happy, and ultimately keep the fans happy. Nobody has to do more for the WWE in terms of putting the product out there than him, and he takes all the responsibility, and he dosent complain or make incidents about things that would probably have the rest of us burned out. Say what you will about the way he is booked but you got to show this guy some respect. Unlike other guys who seem to only do things if it benefits them, cena although he is booked as the main star, dosent have the belt around his waist and hasnt for some time, yet he still does everything that is asked of him. Yes they want to protect him, but honestly do you think cena has a problem jobbing to anyone, i dont know how many times i saw carlito beat cena pretty much clean with maybe a slight distraction. Triple H on the otherhand didnt he have to be injured and then attacked before his match with sheamus, before he put him over.

 

[Fling_a_thong]

actually ive heard some instances about him using his backstage power, but in a good way. he did tell creative team to push evan bourne, he also i believe was one of the people who wanted daniel bryan back when he got fired. the only time i ever remember him using his influence in a bad way was with the kennedy issue, (can someone confirm this?), but no other than that i think hes pretty humble compare to his predecessors SCSA and hogan,

 

[krazyd]

I havnt heard anything about kennedy other than orton being the reason..while i may be misinformed i heard wen cena started out ppl were holding him down like HHH...and yes i do believe that HHH used his marriage to get more power...im not saying he doesnt love stefanie but idk if hed be where he was if he didnt marry her u kno what im sayin? anyway im pretty confident cena was held back a lil bit wen he was starting out..but thru his hard work n dedication he proved his nay-sayers wrong kinda like what the miz is doing now..with that said i believe that is just the nature of the business so while he may not try to hold anyone down he may even try to push ppl forward..i feel that cena uses his political pull backstage whether it be for good or bad

 

[DanielJames]

actually alot of people say he had input on kennedy at that time and so did hunter, but thats just what i've heard.
but he does have influence but just like the others who have it, he doesnt make it public. i heard once he was trying to get an evan bourne push but im glad that didnt happen lol
i think that cena does has the backstage power but doesn't really abuse it or rarely uses it at all if even.

 

[DanielJames]

actually ive heard some instances about him using his backstage power, but in a good way. he did tell creative team to push evan bourne, he also i believe was one of the people who wanted daniel bryan back when he got fired. the only time i ever remember him using his influence in a bad way was with the kennedy issue, (can someone confirm this?), but no other than that i think hes pretty humble compare to his predecessors SCSA and hogan,

yeah everything you said is basically what i just said i realized. yeah he backed up orton on the kennedy scandel and from what i heard so did the game but idc bout that really lol i think we have survived without him

but yeah cena uses his power for good just like supercena should haha

 

[DeathClutch]

The only thing I've heard about Cena was he was sleeping with Mickie James and supposidly she got a bit clingy and was moved to Smackdown, but I don't know how true that is and neither do I care that is their business.

I did hear when Anderson was fired Orton had a massive role in it but Cena voiced his displeasure of facing Anderson but I don't know how true that is.

All in all I don't care, as long as it doesn't effect his in ring stuff then power struggle back stage who cares?

 

[fenfool]

I don't think you can reach the level he has without having SOME sort of input into your character...but he is definitely a company guy, and seems to pretty much do what he is told (granted, if you won 99.9% of your matches, you probably wouldn't have much to say). I've never met him, so I'm just going off what I've heard and read, but he does seem to be a genuinely nice guy.

 

[MizMark]

I havnt heard anything about kennedy other than orton being the reason..while i may be misinformed i heard wen cena started out ppl were holding him down like HHH...and yes i do believe that HHH used his marriage to get more power...im not saying he doesnt love stefanie but idk if hed be where he was if he didnt marry her u kno what im sayin? anyway im pretty confident cena was held back a lil bit wen he was starting out..but thru his hard work n dedication he proved his nay-sayers wrong kinda like what the miz is doing now..with that said i believe that is just the nature of the business so while he may not try to hold anyone down he may even try to push ppl forward..i feel that cena uses his political pull backstage whether it be for good or bad

There is no doubt that HHH now has more power because he got married to Steph, but I do not think that he married her to use her for the power he has gotten. To claim that without any credibility is quite ridiculous.

As for Cena, I do not think he is a bad guy behind the scenes, it has been reported that he wanted Bryan back when he got fired and has pushed for stars to get a push, eg. Evan Bourne.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I'd say that John Cena is no saint. Hell, even the saints weren't really saints when you actually read the Bible. But Cena, of course, has his faults and failings like everyone else does. He no doubt has good days and bad days, some days when he's in a better mood than others, etc.

As far as Cena being a backstage player when it comes to politics, I'm sure that he has tons of stroke but that doesn't mean that he flaunts it or even uses it most of the time. As has been said regarding The Kliq, there are well known and documented incidents of the Kliq's activities during the 90s. You just simply don't hear any problems like that about John Cena. Edge's on screen character is sometimes called the Master Manipulator. In real life, a "master manipulator" is someone that can do his thing behind the scenes, pulling the strings to make the puppets dance like he wants or make the dominos fall when & how he wants and nobody knows about it. In this day and age, it's virtually impossible for someone like that to exist in the public eye. Cena is ALWAYS in the public eye doing something to help promote WWE, granting tons of wishes for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, giving public service announcements, radio & talk interviews, etc. and there's just no dirt on the guy. He's either El Hefe` among bullshitters or there's just not anything out there to find.

Also, as others have said, the only real incident I've heard revolves around Mr. Kennedy being fired from the WWE. What people don't take into consideration, however, are the strikes that Kennedy already had against him. Kennedy did have to miss lot of time in the WWE due to injury. I'm not calling him injury prone so let's not get into that shit, but the truth of the matter is that the guy spent pretty close to half of his 4 years in the WWE on the shelf. As a result, any momentum he gained would be flushed down the toilet and they'd have to start all over again. I know that the potential flaw with that is that the WWE wouldn't do that to the likes of Cena or Triple H or Randy Orton. The answer to that is that Kennedy wasn't Cena, Triple H or Randy Orton. He didn't have their star power, he hadn't proven himself in the long run as they have, hadn't brought in the kind of money for the company that they had, etc. Now all that stuff might count as stroke or clout and rightly so. There's a reason why those three are some of the biggest stars in wrestling. Kennedy also failed a drug test and as I've stated in other posts in the past, flunking a drug test in the WWE is a sure fire way to have your career placed in limbo. Plus, he gave interviews to media outlets saying that he didn't think steroids were a big deal and that the whole thing had been blown way out of proportion. The man's entitled to his opinion, of course, but you can't be goin' around spoutin' off shit like that if you hope to be the face of a multi multi-million dollar company especially when you consider how steroids have contributed to so many deaths of pro wrestlers over this past decade. Anybody with any shred of common sense should know that. Of course Kennedy, now Anderson, has his own little revisionist spin on things as we heard on iMPACT! a few weeks back in which he conveniently left out all these little screw ups on his part and needs someone to blame. I'm not saying that Orton especially didn't have anything to do with his release, he probably did truth be known, but it wasn't NEARLY as cut and dry as he tries to make it out.

I'm not a huge fan of Cena but the man does get a lot of unjustified hate from the IWC. He gets hate from the smarks that just piss on everything because they think it's cool to do so, then he gets it from the ones that consistently bitch and moan about the Attitude Era being gone, then you get the ones that just go along with whatever seems to be the trendy thing among a good sized portion of the IWC and so on and so forth.

 

[Awesomesauceinacup]

Also....

You cant forget the fact that Kennedy was the reason for both Orton and Cena's injuries when he was around. Add that to all his screw ups and things, I wouldn't really want to work with the guy anyways.

Besides....Kennedy isn't even that good.

I doubt Cena even needs to his backstage stroke. WWE is so high on him they book him like he is without him saying a word.

 

[LitasRevenge79]

Jack-Hammer, I love you. LOL. I agree. Look, everyone's only human. They are admitting they have off days. You can't expect everyone to be 100% all the time. If they were, I'd seriously be wondering "What's up with that person?" I myself, am one to be suspicious with someone who's so happy all the time. That's just my nature. Granted, I'm not the biggest Cena fan, and I've heard little tidbits, but that's all just hearsay until you witness it yourself. I've even had my own run-in with Randy Orton, and sadly, it wasn't the greatest, but then again, it was right after he had a massage at a stand in my local mall, so then again, he probably didn't want to be bothered either, plus he was full on heel back then. I get it. But the point is, I may not be Cena's biggest fan, but still, these people are human, and you can't expect them to be giving ALL the time.

I understand Cena is the all time record for Make A Wish grantings, and that's fine and dandy, I am glad, and for him trying not to buy into backstage politicking, that's even better if that's the case. I mean, everyone is going to at sometime in their life try to root for something if not themselves whether they want to admit it or not. If they said they weren't they'd be lying. I mean, I applaud Cena for being a hard worker, and enthusiast for his career choice and wanting to make sure everyone gets a chance. That's admirable. Even for cynics like me to give him props, that should be worth something to the IWC who want to call him out. However, like its been said, I don't think there isn't a soul backstage who can't say that they haven't been guilty of some form of politicking in some way shape or form. Whatever the case may be, I just will give him props, and admit, I've had to eat my words. But as things have been said, whether its about him, Kennedy, Orton, or whoever the latest dirt is about, until its ACTUALLY proven, all is just hearsay. Everyone's going to debate this until kingdom come, but chances are this debate will never be settled, but that's just my take on this with Cena, long story short, he's a hard worker, whatever the story with it, he loves what he does, and does what he loves. End story.

 

[jokeryona12]

I remember the reports clearly, but Kennedy had some strikes anyway.
He had a wellness violation, he won MITB and got injured ruining his storyline, he was going to be Vince's son and got injured again ruining a storyline, then he comes back and drops Orton wrong in the match. Yes I remember they said Orton was angry and Cena was wary about wrestling him too. That was all Vince needed to pull the plug. He tried to push him, but he always failed. He had a lot of off days.

Cena has been known to be a very avid welcomer of fans. Im surehe gets tired of it after a while and maybe loses his cool. I haven't heard of anything really prominent, but he does work his tail off and is a company man. You can't knock a guy for wanting to do well at his job. Look where Miz started and where he is now. You dedicate yourself and eventually it will pay off one way or another.

 

[Spuddogg]

Cena has granted the most wishes, for make the wish fundation, so i have to say he would be a nice guy, he always has people waiting to meet him and he seems like he trys his best to get to and say hi or sign an autograph for people waiting.

And to eltracy632 cry me a river