Elements to a Cena Heel Turn (P1)

It’s come to my attention recently that one of my friends who wrestling alienated like many others has enjoyed reading through these mini-blog links when I’ve posted them to her. So in light of WWE’s questionable movement on Punk, my third instalment in this little thing I’ve got going will be a topic that she, like every wrestling fan who has lived through any point in time between 2005 to present day, has an opinion about.

It doesn’t matter how much his on-screen character tries to protest the notion of it, or how much his fans like to believe he actually is an exception, one day it’s happening. Whether it be through a marketing reason (i.e. his merch dries up), a practical reason (i.e. what better way to usher out the PG era when they eventually do), or an artistic reason, it’s a question of WHEN, rather than a question of IF!!! But this piece will go into the much more relevant aspect of any such decision, that being the HOW!!!

In this modern day WWE which is defined by flippancy, it may be necessary for them to search externally for the solution on a docile matter such as this, because the manner in which Cena’s character has been dealt with the last 7/8 years has turned this into a needless conundrum. I’ll even throw a spanner into the works of my own article by stating early on that as of right now, I see no possible way to convincingly get this character to even question some of his beliefs, much less compromise them. But despite that making the transition awkward, fortunately those beliefs he clings too have weak foundations, the true resistance in his character is the unwillingness to realise it through either ignorance or idealism.

1) The Seed

The Cena character is hardwired very transparently, which makes him a clear target to those who seek an alternative, e.g. Angle, Bischoff, HHH, Punk, Kane, Rock, the fans, among many many others. The only defence his character has had time and time again is his invincibility and his powers of deflection (if someone could find me a point in the last 8 years where he genuinely answered his critics, please enlighten me). This makes the catalyst fairly straight forward, it’s the getting there that’s tricky. He needs to be put into a position where he sees what others see, what many of us see, namely a shell of a character that’s been reduced to nothing more than a campaign slogan. All this characters heel persona needs to do is look upon that walking promotion machine we’ve had to watch since 2005 (the shirts, the cheesy smiling, the pre-school one liners, etc…) and that seed will have all the water it’ll need to sprout out the ground and into the sky. Unlike a lot of other wrestlers who generally require something external to spark a different mentality, often a change in circumstance involving other wrestlers, Cena can quite handily find all the necessary ammo for the change within any time. I’ve always taken quiet solace in the knowledge that the first time we’ll hear John Cena openly respond to criticism will be the week after he finally turns heel.

Continued in Part 2.....
(The Fan Interface, The Mentality, The Characterstics)