Originally Posted by airr233

I agree for the most part. I like Dan Wahlers' stuff on wrestlingobserver.com. He usually hits stuff right on the head.

(sorry, its long but he makes a pretty good point)

For months I have been advocating the idea of turning John Cena heel, I have written about it extensively, and that would seem like the next logical step to what’s been happening for a good while now. But after watching Wrestlemania, and Raw the following night, and mulling everything over in my head, I’ve come to a different conclusion. At this point they would be better off leaving things the way they are, and continue to get the diverse reactions from city to city. They have something going here, and it’s something unlike anything else I have ever seen in wrestling. I have never seen a wrestler that so many people liked, while at the same time just as many people hated. And these people have verbal wars in every arena across the country, and overseas. The pro-Cena people want to drown out the people booing, so they yell and scream even louder. While the anti-Cena people want to overtake the people cheering, so they boo louder, and start obscene chants. It’s a verbal volley back and forth between these people who love John Cena, and everything he represents, and the people that despise him, and loathe everything he represents. It gives each of his matches such a unique dynamic; it’s something amazing to watch. I can’t recall anything like it in my 21 years of watching wrestling. I have heard dueling crowd chants before at Ring of Honor shows, but this is on such a bigger and grander scale. They have people that pay to cheer John Cena, and people that pay to boo him. The bottom line is they are paying to see John Cena, and they are paying to attend a WWE show. It’s something that actually benefits the company more in the long run.

If they were to turn Cena heel, then the coolness would be gone. The people booing Cena wouldn’t feel like they were bucking the system anymore, and going against the company. It would no longer be cool to boo John Cena, and chances are a lot of those people would move onto the next “cool” thing. If you lose that, then you lose a big reason why this is working right now. The company still wants everyone to love Cena, and everyone to throw babies up the air when he comes out. That is not going to happen. The best thing for them to do is stop trying so hard to manipulate the crowd. Just sit back and let it happen. Don’t bring attention to it, don’t keep having the announcers talk about it every three seconds. They think that by talking about it so much, and making it seem lame that people are going to stop. They even had Jonathan Coachman get on the side of the fans on Raw, which I guess was their version of reverse psychology. Maybe someone would say, “Oh no, Coach likes what I like, and I don’t like Coach, so I can’t like the same things he likes. So I better stop booing Cena.” Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.

It’s actually comical to watch every week the ridiculous lengths they will go to. My advice is stop all that, and just sit back and watch it happen. Let the fans keep having their dueling chants. John Cena is a man, he’s not going to shrivel up and die if half an arena full of people boo him. He should be more than used to it by now. The end result in all of this is people are paying money to get involved in this, and that is why WWE needs to stop trying so hard, and just let things develop naturally. They need to keep doing what they’re doing with Cena. If they cheer him, great. If they boo him, that’s great too. As long as they paid money for the seat they’re sitting in, that’s all that matters in the grand scheme of things. Ride the wave until it runs out, and then make the changes that need to be made. Because right now they have something that they haven’t had in a long time and that’s genuine interest in one of their new characters. It just goes to show you that despite all the storylines, all the scripting, and the crowd manipulation, you can’t force people to care about someone. These things just happen.