GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[cad]

The elephant in the room with Cena, and I don't quite understand why it more or less goes ignored, is that he worked a style and played a role that demanded a genuine connection with the audience, and he just never had it. In a workrate driven style, you can still sit back and enjoy the action even if the crowd doesn't back the right wrestler. WWE main events are designed to build to huge pops based on how much the fans care about this guy. Take that away and the match loses a lot of its effect. Does anyone call Slaughter-Sheik a MOTDC with a dead crowd? Does anyone call it a MOTDC if the sound were missing? I suppose you could say that from a nuts and bolts standpoint Cena does the things that you want from an ace babyface, but without the intended reaction he might as well be, as they say, wrestling in a vacuum.

It's not entirely his fault that they gave him the gimmicks of wannabe rapper and wannabe marine. I have no idea why anyone would cheer for either of those things, or why WWE thought that they would. On the other hand, wrestlers have gotten some pretty loony stuff over, just by having an authenticity that Cena always seemed to lack. Mick Foley as the crippled pianist, Matt Borne as the sadistic clown. I mean, going back to Slaughter, no one had any trouble buying him as a soldier. Okay, you know, once you reach the point where you're praising Sgt. Slaughter for stolen valor, it's probably time to pack it in.

[Boss Rock]

14 minutes ago, cad said:

The elephant in the room with Cena, and I don't quite understand why it more or less goes ignored, is that he worked a style and played a role that demanded a genuine connection with the audience, and he just never had it. In a workrate driven style, you can still sit back and enjoy the action even if the crowd doesn't back the right wrestler. WWE main events are designed to build to huge pops based on how much the fans care about this guy. Take that away and the match loses a lot of its effect. Does anyone call Slaughter-Sheik a MOTDC with a dead crowd? Does anyone call it a MOTDC if the sound were missing? I suppose you could say that from a nuts and bolts standpoint Cena does the things that you want from an ace babyface, but without the intended reaction he might as well be, as they say, wrestling in a vacuum.

It's not entirely his fault that they gave him the gimmicks of wannabe rapper and wannabe marine. I have no idea why anyone would cheer for either of those things, or why WWE thought that they would. On the other hand, wrestlers have gotten some pretty loony stuff over, just by having an authenticity that Cena always seemed to lack. Mick Foley as the crippled pianist, Matt Borne as the sadistic clown. I mean, going back to Slaughter, no one had any trouble buying him as a soldier. Okay, you know, once you reach the point where you're praising Sgt. Slaughter for stolen valor, it's probably time to pack it in.

You can argue a lot of things about Cena but I don't agree at all that he lacked a connection with the crowd.

[cad]

Then why are so many of them booing him in every match?

[Boss Rock]

3 minutes ago, cad said:

Then why are so many of them booing him in every match?

He's polarizing sure but there's usually an equally loud fanbase cheering for him. Not to mention the last few years of his career the crowd was almost entirely behind him and the "Cena sucks" largely just became a crowd tradition similar to the "You suck" chants for Kurt. There were certainly times the crowd was 100% against him (RVD in Hammerstein, Punk in Chicago), but that was usually not the case.

12 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

It's not entirely his fault that they gave him the gimmicks of wannabe rapper and wannabe marine. I have no idea why anyone would cheer for either of those things, or why WWE thought that they would.

To be fair, the rapper gimmick is initially how he got over with the fans in the first place. I only had Cena at 81 so I don't really consider myself a major fan. His execution was sloppy and he had a lot of bad matches. But the idea that he never had a connection with the crowd and that they only booed him is not true.

[cad]

I never said that all he got was boos. My standard for a crowd connection for a babyface that the promotion is building itself around is a lot higher than "half the fans like him, I guess." This is a man playing the same role as Bruno, Hogan, Austin and Rock, for crying out loud. When those guys did spots in their matches that called for a pop, they got their pop. And it wasn't counteracted by half of the audience booing.