Alright, this is about Cena again. I know, I know.
I've been thinking about it, mainly because this Cena/Nexus storyline is something that has actively pissed me off. It's been a while since WWE or even TNA has done that. Sure, there are always things that are a little 'off', but this is just such a slap in the face to the fans, to logic, to the industry, that it's almost turned me off to WWE entirely. I'm aware that's an empty threat, but I'll just pretend I'm Cena and that nothing I agree to matters.
It goes back to the larger issue that is killing the industry, and that's the fact that nothing matters anymore. The death of kayfabe and the rise of 'sports entertainment' have slowly eroded what drew people into wrestling in the first place. One of the points that anyone running a wrestling company should make to their employees is that it shouldn't matter if the fans know it's real, what matters is that we present it like it is. I think, deep down, we all want to believe in it again. Not in a naive mark way, but in the way we watched it when we were younger, when things were consistent, and matches meant something no matter what they were for. When you present a competition, you need to maintain the ruse that it *is* one, and that's one of the things that has gotten increasingly worse. Belts are marginalized. Champions are marginalized. I had to just go look up who the Intercontinental Champion was, and that made me sad.
This Cena storyline plays into this on such a base level that it disgusts me. I get it, guys, Cena is the golden goose. The entire company is based around him, but them being scared to pull him off TV for even a week should scare every single fan in this thread. Think about the far-reaching implications of that. They wrote a storyline that was designed for, and had been used for ages to, get guys off TV. Why would you even write this for someone you never planned to follow through with? At least take him off TV for a week, or at the bare minimum don't still treat him like an employee.
There's a huge lack of logic in wrestling now, and that bugs me. It goes back to the fact that nothing means anything now, because there are no rules. When you present a world, whether it's wrestling, movies, or TV, you need to create a set of rules that govern it. Wrestling no longer has that. Things that happen one week have zero bearing the next. It's a bad way to write, and wrestling needs to be better than that. There needs to be consistency, or the whole thing falls apart.
Let's go back to the Cena thing again... where is the logic? Ok, the GM grants Wade Barrett power to fire Cena. Fine. What, exactly, gives Barrett sole authority to hire him back? Does the GM supercede every single person in the entire company? We can run with Vince being in a coma, but then who is running the company? Where is Stephanie? It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Another point that I make is, well, why does the Raw GM have so much authority that he can effectively fire Cena altogether? Have we not always pretended that Raw and Smackdown were different? Shouldn't we have Teddy Long at least making overtures to the biggest free agent EVER? Now, that's all basic stuff. Let's even go further and talk about the fact that Cena is running roughshod over everything. He apparently hangs out backstage. He hides under the ring. He jumps the barrier. HE GETS TO CELEBRATE TO HIS THEME MUSIC IN THE RING. Either they need to explain that a higher power is behind him, or this is just
ed up to a point of no return. Nexus has been attacking people, but paid employees shouldn't be letting non-employees do any of this stuff. Also, where is the GM? Should they not be getting involved? If a 'fan' keeps interfering, shouldn't he at the very least have them arrested, or perhaps announce that if John Cena EVER wants to work there again he should, I don't know, stop committing crimes against the people the GM is overseeing?
This is some serious Swiss cheese shit.
Logic gaps aside, the bigger problem of the past two weeks is Cena himself. Jokey Cena needs to be stopped. He undercuts every single thing he's involved in, and it kills the heat and credibility of everyone he touches. He's like a dick Superman. Honestly, would people be behind Superman if, while sneak-attacking Lex Luthor, he was making quips and mocking him for not being able to stop him? We're aware that, even though there's this huge 'no bullying' push everywhere, that Cena is, effectively, a cliche high school bully? I don't know, maybe I'm projecting, but there's just something about the joking and the Blue Chipper smile that rubs me the wrong way. There's no good feeling in Superman overcoming odds that were never stacked against him. Then, to be joking and smiling about how ineffective his foils are? It's not a good recipe.
Plus, they've taken the joking too far, especially for an up-to-this-point serious storyline. When he jumped into that hotel room, it reminded me of the hammy shit I'd do in skits back in junior high to get a cheap laugh. Honestly, if he winked at the camera, it wouldn't have felt out of place. It's gone from serious to a cartoon in a week. They might as well just go for it and have Nexus chase Cena around backstage, all set to Yakety Sax. That's where we are with this shit, anyway.
To sort of finish this out, it's again indicative of a larger problem. Not only do belts, stipulations, and feuds mean nothing... Cena is untouchable, and they're letting him act like it. If there are consequences in a world, they need to count for everyone, or it just fails on every level. Like I said, the fact that they wouldn't even take him off TV for a week is very telling about how they really view the younger talent. Sure, they can talk about this youth push all that want, but they're absolutely terrified that if Cena doesn't show up for a week that people will turn it off. It's what happens when you don't build anyone else up. They honestly believe that if you go to a show and Cena isn't there, people will stop watching, and that's a frightening mindset. Talking about previous golden geese, it's hard not to go back to Attitude Era and point at that as a time when the golden goose was treated the way they should be. Austin was important, and he was the money-maker. There's no way around that, but it also didn't mean that if Austin wasn't at Raw, you demanded a refund. Why? If Austin wasn't there, it's a pretty good bet you got to see some combination of The Rock, Taker, Foley, or HHH. You still got main-event talent. Now, if Cena and Orton are both off a show, they're
ed. And, really, if Raw is
ed, what about Smackdown? I mean, christ, this is a show that is giving us two months of Edge vs. Kane. This is a very serious problem, and one that they need to rectify right now. Have some faith in the audience, and throw a new guy out there. It might work, it might not, but these stutter-stop pushes are making it worse. My big 'crazy' theory is that Vince, of all people, got spooked when Lashley left. He was the guy that was being pushed to the moon, the guy anointed to be the next Cena, and he gave it all up and left. To a lesser extent, the same sort of thing happened with Hardy. I feel as if Vince is so worried about putting time behind people that are untested as 'long-timers' that he's stopped pushing anyone. It's back to the territory days... you trust family, you trust company men. It's not a model that the current business needs.
That was a much longer post than I intended, but I wanted to get some things out. This storyline just epitomizes everything I dislike about the current wrestling industry, and it's truly rubbed me the wrong way. I say that as someone who knows they aren't the target audience anymore, but when something is almost blatantly offensive to the intellgence of the audience, I just need to rant. What scares me is that the crowds are eating it up, and that truly frightens because of the bearing it has on where WWE is headed.
I can see Vince McMahon walking up to a bunch of producers just shitting on his in-ring work, looking at the guy's giant, chiseled, glistening body (let's be honest, Vince is totally sorta gay, like strongpimphand style), and says "that kid's got the goooooooods."
