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Will This Be Cena's Last World Title Reign?


Fantastic

  

54 members have voted

  1. 1. Will this be John Cena's final world title reign?

    • Yes
      0
    • He'll Equal Flair
      0
    • He'll Surpass Flair
      54


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If Cena were to retire for a bit, and then return after a year or couple years away as a "legend", he'd get a mammoth pop. Remember - people hated him back in 2008 too, but when he came back early from the injury at the Rumble, the Garden went nuts for him.

 

And then a few minutes later they remembered they were supposed to hate him and started booing

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I just realised watching Raw last night that John Cena is now a 15 time world champion. One more reign would tie him with Ric Flair's recognised world title reigns, and negate that distinction of Flair's that both WCW and WWE have used to promote him over the years.

 

My first thought is that he probably will. WWE seems to pull out all the stops in order to decorate Cena in any way that they can, as they seem determined to make a star that's bigger than both Hogan and Austin (it's not working, by the way). However, upon watching the little show of respect between Cena and Flair last night, I'm wondering whether WWE will preserve Flair's 16 time record out of respect and legacy?

 

John Cena certainly doesn't need more title reigns. He's beyond the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, in much the same way the likes of Triple H and The Undertaker are beyond world title reigns. Obviously, Cena isn't part time like them, but he doesn't add any more value to the title now he's had so many reigns (many of which were uneventful or transitional), and holding the title doesn't elevate him any further either. He's the pinnacle of WWE, his name alone (not preceded by "WWE World Heavyweight Champion) sells tickets and PPV's.

 

So, lets put it to the poll.

Technically, Flair has title reigns in the 20s or more. Unfortunately, NWA tended not to count the title changes outside of the USA. Also, there were some title changes which happend in the US, which were not mentioned on tv. WWE, has also gotten into the game of rewriting history to their liking, some title changes have been acknowledged, and some have been forgotten. Ric Flair did the job to Jack Veneno, because he felt for his life in the coming riot, if he did not win. Flair wrote about it in his book, stating he did it on the fly, and got the hell out of there.

 

Honestly, with Trips in charge, and his friendship with Flair, it stands to reason that Cena will probably not pass Flair, however, in today's WWE, he probably will set the mark, Michael Cole will talk about Cena's mark on the world title, and his many reigns not likely to be surpassed in WWE for a long while.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Taking a quick look at wikipedia, and trying to trim out the redundancies, it looks like Flair gets...

 

10 NWA World titles

8 WCW World titles

2 WWF World titles

 

3 Mid Atlantic Heavyweight titles

2 NWA Television titles

6 Mid Atlantic/NWA/WCW US titles

2 WCW International World Heavyweight titles

1 NWA Missouri Heavyweight title

1 WWE Intercontinental title

 

3 Mid Atlantic Tag Team titles

3 NWA World Tag Team titles

3 WWE World Tag Team titles

 

Which comes to 44 titles.

 

Thats the thing with WWE. They wont recognise certain title wins because apparently it didnt happen if its a house show. Not just flair but other people. Yet times it stands. There was a point in time when WCW recognised certain runs but WWE didnt.

 

Its a bit wishy washy at times and checking the WWE.com website they dont recognise Fujinami's Title win from Japan where Flair beat him at Superbrawl to win the belt. Even Flair's win from Saturday Night isnt mentioned on the WWE site either when the belt was clearly held up on TV after the double pin at Spring Stampede 94.

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Like others said, if he left for a while or finished up full-time and then showed up a year or so later and did appearances here and there like Austin does or used to do, he will get HUGE pops…..he's hated now cause some don't like his clean image in today;s bad is cool world and the rest boo him cause its the thing to do..

 

But I guarantee if he leaves and then shows up again year or two later and does sporadic appearance, HUGE pops…thats how fans are…get sick of it, want it gone, then when its gone for a while, we miss it and want it back!

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That already happened before when he made the big surprise early return from injury to win the Royal Rumble and the crowd went crazy when he came out before they remembered they were supposed to boo him in time for the finish.

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WWE is good at keeping its mythology strong. HHH is aware that for the WWE library to mean anything EVERYTHING in the past cannot be surpassed. Some monuments must be left standing. Five years from now, someone hearing about the 16 time WHC Ric Flair for the first time might capture that person's attention. The person might become a fan based off the personality of Flair and the greatest of the 16time accomplishment that others have come close to but never been able to replicate. The Undertaker's 21 year streak at WrestleMania is another example. Austin winning 3 Royal Rumble matches. Hulk Hogan's four year title reign. All of this stuff still has to mean SOMETHING 5,10,15,20 years from now. How are you going to sell the new generation on the importance of these figures (and in doing so try to sell The Network) if all of these guys are truly yesterday's news and all accomplishments have been surpassed tenfold.

 

 

Michael Jackson, Elvis, and The Beatles STILL mean something today for a reason. They all have records that has not been passed. Perhaps I am giving everyone too much credit, but I don't think it will happen. Not only are we talking about the past, but let's talk about the present. Does Cena NEED another title reign? Him winning the title most recently came off so forced and un-needed. The guy IS the top star. It doesn't matter who holds the title. Cena holding the belt isn't going to make him or make him seem more important. If anything another title reign, at this point-in-time, will possibility hurt others more than Flair's 16th title reign did to Flair's peers at the time of Flair's reign.

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Like others said, if he left for a while or finished up full-time and then showed up a year or so later and did appearances here and there like Austin does or used to do, he will get HUGE pops…..he's hated now cause some don't like his clean image in today;s bad is cool world and the rest boo him cause its the thing to do..

 

But I guarantee if he leaves and then shows up again year or two later and does sporadic appearance, HUGE pops…thats how fans are…get sick of it, want it gone, then when its gone for a while, we miss it and want it back!

 

Had this been the 1980s wrestling fans would lap him up.

 

Its a shame in 2014 that you can have a lovable cut clean face because fans rebel against it which is a shame as thats clearly not what they should be cheering.

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