PWP Nation’s Eron Ramadanov explains how John Cena forever changed Vince McMahon’s thought process of booking top guys.
Vince McMahon is one of the most influential figures in the history of sports entertainment. I’d argue the most influential, but one thing we can all agree on is that Vinny Mac is a very complex and difficult person to understand in the scope of sports entertainment. It’s well documented that McMahon is not an easy person to be around and working for him can be a daunting task, although rewarding. Let’s just say it’s not a regular “9-to-5.”
To most, McMahon is looked at as a creative genius when it comes to the art that is sports entertainment. McMahon is responsible for all the good and the bad that we see on television every week, and decades of past content. He’s had his fair share of strikeouts and grand slams, and with every year that passes, he adds to the incredible and complicated legacy he has created for himself, his family, his company and most importantly, professional wre… I mean, sports entertainment.
Regardless of Vince’s brilliant mind, I want to focus on something very specific. The main focal point of this piece is to bring attention to Vince McMahon’s booking of top level/main event talent from his early days as a promoter with Bruno Sammartino and Hulk Hogan to 2018, where Roman Reigns is atop the now billion dollar global superpower.
And speaking of top guys, there is a particular “top guy” that I want to focus on today. His name is John Cena.
Cena spent most of his career as WWE’s “golden boy,” on the cover of video games, magazines, commercials, late-night shows and the list goes on. WWE went all in with Cena, but something happened that Vince never really encountered with his former “golden boys.”
The fans voiced their displeasure and disapproval. Even though Cena started with most of the fans support once turning babyface, that didn’t last long. Starting in 2005 and into 2006, fans became more vocal in their dislike for Cena. Not because he was a heel and WWE was trying to get him booed, but something that didn’t connect with the fans of the mid-2000s. Some claimed he was a bad wrestler, others thought he was a crappy promo. In saying that, McMahon and the rest of WWE’s creative team had to make a decision: run with Cena as the top guy, ignore the 50/50 split of the fanbase (sometimes 80/20 or 100/0) or pick someone else to replace him.
At that point in time, there were few options, in my opinion, to replace Cena as the “top guy.” Batista was probably the only other person that could’ve been thrust into that role, but WWE decided that they invested too much into Cena and moved forward with him as their guy anyway.
But why would Vince McMahon accept that? What’s difficult to understand for me is that I don’t believe McMahon would have done that with ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, Hogan or Sammartino, in that climate or era. If fans turned on anyone of those guys on a large scale like they did with Cena, I don’t think McMahon would’ve stayed on course with those individuals. The stakes were too high and fans would flock to other wrestling programs. There is a difference between heat and “change my channel” heat and in those time periods, Vince would’ve understood that.
But John Cena changed the way McMahon thinks about and views the role. The position of being “THE GUY” isn’t easy and obviously, not every fan is going to like that person. But in WWE history, traditionally, Cena was the first to really get, what WWE now calls, a “polarizing” reaction. Now, the focus here isn’t WHY Cena was received that way, but WHY Vince McMahon continued to move forward with him? Because the reactions don’t matter. Not anymore at least.
John Cena changed that. He changed the way Vince McMahon looks at this spot and he changed his view forever. Because at the end of the work day, WWE continued to thrive and the reaction Cena was getting wasn’t affecting McMahon’s pockets in a negative way. In fact, WWE is the most profitable it has ever been and John Cena is a big part of that.
The way Cena was welcomed into arenas didn’t seem to phase Vince McMahon in the slightest and it certainly doesn’t seem to phase him with Roman Reigns today. As it seems, Reigns is also getting a “polarizing” reaction each and every week, and Vince McMahon hasn’t given up on him and it doesn’t seem like he ever will. It has become clear that Vince McMahon isn’t afraid of our voices or how loud we get, aside from very few exceptions (i.e. Daniel Bryan). John Cena’s success not only changed how McMahon views the role of said “top guy,” but how he views his fanbase.
The reason being: Vince thinks it doesn’t matter. And the sad thing is, he might be right.
For years now, Vince is doing the same thing he did with Cena, but instead Roman Reigns is the “top guy.” With social media playing a bigger part in Reigns career, I’m not surprised that McMahon has continued with Reigns, even though most fans aren’t supportive of him as the next “golden boy.” But regardless of what fans say or think, McMahon is using the same mentality he used with Cena: it doesn’t matter if he gets booed, the company is still making money. And I’m not so sure if that’s a bad thing from a business standpoint. But from a creative and viewership perspective, it makes for a less appealing product. Now, the tricky part is when the poor product begins to bleed over into poor business. Until then, Vince McMahon will continue to operate with business as usual.
Not only does Vince continue with business as usual, he will book around these types of things and continue to position Reigns as the odd-defying, white-meat babyface he is so desperately longing for. As I said above, Vince might be right. The reaction of his “top-guy” doesn’t matter anymore. But what does matter is how that affects the rest of the roster. When forcing Reigns or Cena onto the audience, it negatively affects the product by forcing other guys who are popular or receive a positive reaction to the side. When you start disregarding the reactions the talent is getting, you begin to train your audience to not care anymore. And as a content creator, I don’t think that’s the smartest idea. People want to be invested in something. A character, a storyline, but when someone doesn’t buy it, you’ll never get them to do that. Insulting a person’s intelligence is not the best business move. But hey, what do I know? He’s the billionaire…
Another key part of this discussion is the idea of competition in 2018. Now, WWE doesn’t compete with WCW or ECW. Instead, they go head-to-head with the NFL or the NBA, Game of Thrones, Netflix or even social media. I think Vince McMahon is fooled into thinking that he no longer has competition. There is always something else to do and on many nights, I choose something else to watch or do than be subjective to this vortex or twilight zone where WWE is telling me to cheer “wrestler X” when I (and many others) want to cheer “wrestler Y.” But let’s not even take it that far. It’s even worse when WWE decides to blatantly tell you that the way the fans are acting is unusual or odd at the start of broadcasts and pretending that the fans are the ones who are mistaken. The entire idea around sports entertainment is to get people to suspend their disbelief and buy-in to what you’re selling them. But in McMahon’s case, he’s making it harder and harder to do that.
So, in closing, it is clear in my eyes that John Cena’s run at the top of WWE forever changed how Vince McMahon views and approaches booking that spot. As long as the company is still making money, McMahon couldn’t care less if fans boo or cheer Roman Reigns or any future top guy. McMahon will continue to give us what he wants too, and dress it up however he wants.
To further discuss this topic, interact with me on Twitter @Eron_PWP.
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