Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: John Cena, wrestling, wwe
John Cena Booked for WWE Raw on March 6th in Boston
Cena will make one of his rare returns to WWE on WWE Raw on March 8th, presumably to set up a WrestleMania match with Austin Theory.
Once upon a time, John Cena was the most hated man in wrestling. The chosen one of Vince McMahon for a decade that seemed like it would never end, Cena was a polarizing figure who appealed to children and sold lots of merchandise but was often booed or received, at best, a mixed reaction while crushing fan-favorite opponents, who were often booked as heels against Cena's uber babyface. The LOLCenaWins era of WWE followed Triple H's Reign of Terror, and preceded Roman Reigns' run as "The Guy" in symbolizing McMahon's creative bankruptcy and demonstrating WWE's outright war against its own fans in the monopoly era. Rooting against Cena was, for wrestling fans, a rejection of WWE's PG direction while (even as fans bought tickets and PPVs hoping to see Cena suffer a rare loss).
But absence makes the heart grow fonder.
The end of Cena's full-time wrestling career didn't come without warning, but it still happened so fast it caught fans off guard. Cena never turned heel, and he never really passed the torch in a meaningful way. He just stopped winning so much and then one day fans found themselves in a wrestling landscape where Roman Reigns was the new Cena, and Cena was off in Hollywood, following The Rock in finding mainstream success and becoming a very occasional part-time attraction for the wrestling world.
Five years after Cena's last WWE World Championship reign, fans are happy just for Cena to make a one-time appearance in a WWE ring, and those fans will get their wish on Monday, March 6th, when Cena appears at WWE Raw in Boston. Presumably, Cena will be there to kick off a feud with United States Champion Austin Theory that will lead to a match at WrestleMania. Whether Cena wins that match and goes on to hold the title for a brief time, or puts Theory over as a sort of newer version of Cena, remains to be seen. For WWE fans, it will be one more chance to appreciate a legend that they never knew they would miss until he was already gone.