Brock Lesnar and John Cena are set for a rematch at WWE’s Night of Champions with John Cena exercising his rematch clause from his Summerslam beating a month ago. The rematch is common sense. There really wasn’t a way to explain why he wouldn’t get his rematch and having him face Lesnar again will earn the WWE another intriguing pay per view main event before both men go on their separate ways. Now I am not in the camp of Cena Haters nor in the camp of Cenation, I am somewhere fiddling in the middle. I know he’s necessary especially in this ‘here today gone tomorrow’ business because Cena is there every single week. Even when Cena is injured he somehow regenerates faster than a normal human and gets back to work. Like he’s part lizard. Look at a guy like Daniel Bryan who is having major complications with his neck. While Bryan was in the rise to become the top guy. Just like that everything stopped and what did the WWE do? They called on John Cena to do what he does best and reset the WWE title picture. Whenever WWE needs to hit the reboot switch they just throw the title on Cena and start from there. That’s the value in John Cena and if you don’t believe me maybe you’ll listen to Paul Heyman a man much more eloquent than I can even imagine being.
Via the Steve Austin Show Unleashed Podcast,
“There are people who pay to see John Cena, so they can come to the arena and scream ‘Let’s go Cena’ and they buy his t-shirts and they buy his wristbands and they buy his hats and they buy more of his merchandise than any other superstar in WWE today or in the past ten years. There are those that come to the arena to boo John Cena. ‘Cena Sucks!’ And they are passionate and they have great fervor in their conviction that John Cena sucks and I’m gonna pay for a ticket to tell that man that he sucks. And the fact is they’re willing to pay for the right and the privilege to do so. That makes John Cena the biggest attraction in the industry today.”
-Paul Heyman
Cena is an attraction for that very reason. People hate him but they love hating him. Why else would people who hate him waste their time and energy making endless memes and ranting against Cena? So you see, I understand that Cena is a necessary evil, so to speak, and when the WWE fire begins to flicker they need that log there to be able to throw back on the fire. Cena, like Lesnar, really doesn’t need a title on the line to make people care one way or the other. Lesnar hasn’t held a title for 11 years and can still be in top storylines with top players with nothing but Paul Heyman on the mic for him. Lesnar doesn’t need that title but don’t get me wrong, I love seeing him as champion. There is something natural about seeing Lesnar with a title. It looks like it was made for him and it technically was since they did make a new WWE Title belt for him. Lesnar as champion makes that WWE Title feel bigger and harder to obtain. The problem? Lesnar has a unique contract with the WWE. He’s contracted for a certain number of dates and paid an agreed upon fee for extra appearances. This means the WWE will try to keep him off TV to save themselves the money that he commands. By doing so they have a champion rarely on free TV. It also makes an appearance by Lesnar, appointment TV.
“Next Week Brock Lesnar Returns” Seems so much more important when the champion graces us with his presence. Meanwhile, when Lesnar isn’t on TV, they can either shoot backstage promos when he is there to play on the nights he isn’t or have Heyman paint a masterpiece with the microphone for him, like Heyman did on Raw with Cena. Lesnar doesn’t need to be on TV every week for us to know he’s a bad man. Trust me, we won’t forget about him. A Cena promo? You’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. Hustle Loyalty Respect Never Give Up Repeat. John Cena is still good on the mic but it’s just stale since we’ve seen every version of this for the past 10 years. He’s always there. Seriously. He never leaves long enough for me to care. Cena got hit with 16 German Suplexes and he missed a week. WWE can’t have him off TV long so there he is right back with the same old song and dance. Yawn. Lesnar last held the gold nearly 11 years ago so it seems surreal to see him back as the champion while it feels Cena is always champion. Old. Stale. Boring.
The WWE is in the business of selling WWE Network subscriptions and Brock Lesnar ssells intrigue blurring reality with scripted, sells excitement and most importantly sells subscriptions. How long can the WWE go with Brock Lesnar as their champion off TV week after week? How long until John Cena earns his 16th record tying world championship? The answer to that latter is, not at WWE’s Night of Champions. The answer to the former is that Lesnar will remain the champion that the WWE needs right now and he will carry that title until Wrestlemania 31 when a new star will be born.