That MITB entrance is amazing and has a louder crowd but I still prefer his entrance at One Night Stand; the fans have pure hatred for him, the bit with his shirt getting thrown back in the ring several times after being spit on and one guy wiping his ass with it is incredible and Cena plays it all perfectly. Epic moment!

It's stuff like One Night Stand where I think Cena can be one of the best heels in the business. But, the problem is going to arise when he becomes such a good heel that he starts getting cheers again. Then what? Do they turn him in to Fruity Pebbles Cena like we have now?

No matter. They won't be turning him. I was optimistic that they would about 4 weeks ago, but that is waning.

It became clear to me recently that it just wouldnt happen, he is far far too loved by kids for them to turn him. The recent videos they have had of him hyping him and Rock @ WM (Cena with a bunch of kids mostly) makes it clearer than ever.

All i want is them to change him up slightly, mix in more moves, tweak the gimmick to be less overtly ridiculously goody two shoes and sugar sweet and make his promos pop more, perhaps winking at a turn with the rapping and insults he threw at Rock last year but not needing to do so as long as he is directing it towards heels (aka he is a "heel", but he is heel to other heels and thus is a face, basically what worked for Stone Cold's entire career as a face) and ill be happy.

Maybe Miz can get over huge as a face that he can do the workload of something ridiculous like 300 make a wish foundation meetings a year and many appearances outside of wrestling in a kid friendly way (he is already pretty popular doing stuff like MTV awards and Blue Peter etc afaik) so if he takes up a lot of the slack they could do so, but Cena is just too beloved and too important an asset for one of their most important segments that they can do anything but keep the ship steady and hope to ride out the storm.

Baby steps.

Let's start with six straight weeks without a Cena bathroom joke, then build from there.

I don't think the problem with Cena is that he is a face as much as the fact that his character has barely changed in 6 years and his face character wasn't particularly interesting to begin with. When he is serious then he can be great as a face but he is way too cheesy way too often, I can understand why they haven't turned him heel but they should have at least revamped his face character a long time ago given that he has received mixed reactions for over 5 years.

EDIT: Pretty much what Phill said.

Yeah that's the thing, a gradual shift in his character over time won't lose the kids. They'll follow him regardless, as long as he doesn't turn heel. It's unacceptable that they haven't tried to please a greater part of the audience with his character, especially given that I think it'd be very difficult to make him be less over with the little people.

wwe risks way too much money turning cena to do it. ppl keep point to the hogan model, but hogan was turned in an era where most of the ppl watching were teens who were tired of the vitamins/prayers nonsense that made him a megastar in an era where mostly kids watched. it's cyclical, mostly kids are watching now. no sense in turning cena just to pander to the minority and risk losing the majority

I don't believe that wrestling has to be cyclical and I don't think there is any other form of entertainment that would accept or sustain such long downward trending periods between peaks that wrestling and particularly WWE does. At the end of the day wrestling is a tv show and if you make it entertaining and satisfy your audience then there is no reason to think that they couldn't regularly attract an older audience, I think that kids make up so much of the audience now because the product caters to them and not the other way around.

They should point to the Austin model, he was turned while still selling the most merchandise in the history of wrestling.

yea, but that was when the majority viewing age group still endorsed heels and when basically everyone sold. it COULD work out that cena still sells merch, and it COULD work out that he sells more, but it seems like an unnecessary risk especially given the proportion of overall merch sold that's cena's

More than anything I want to see Punk go back to heel. If anyone is a natural heel, it's him.

Few points...

I was never huge on JBL but was a huge ****ing mark for Clothesline from Hell. Simple but effective as **** and it looked like he legit murked people at times.

In regards to Cena entrance, the ONS crowd was easily more heinous and entertaining but I feel as if there's something more impressive about having 97% of 14,000+ hating one guy than 100% of 3500 or 4500 (whatever the Hammerstein holds).

I agree, sadly I think there's almost no chance both Cena and Punk turn heel. If WWE is going to finally pull the trigger and turn Cena heel they almost have to keep Punk as their top face because they have no one else.

Werent they making a loss overall at that time?

Its hard to extract one point out of potentially hundreds and assume it would work as well now as then like it can be analysed in a vacuum.

But its not impossible to happen yet i guess, esp as Punk gets over more (he is the top merch seller right now iirc). At Summerslam 2010 during the height of the Nexus there was a very serious meeting before the event between Cena, Vince, Ace, Steph and presumably other important people about whether Cena should be turned heel or not. He was in favour of it, he wasnt alone, however they decided not to as they didnt think they had a face who could step up and fill that role in the same way if he did turn so they doubled down in the end.

not sure if this short sting interview has been posted...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qsvO...watch_response

God this just upsets me. Instead of facing Taker at mania, entering the HOF and retiring he choses to return to TNA and have his epic match with Hardy at Victory Road.

I miss the A$$-HOLE chants, especially when Vince screamed SHUT UP! That was a true indicator of heel heat

It makes me wonder what made the negotiations fall through with Sting and WWE. It clearly wouldnt be money, it probably wouldnt be due to a long contract required from the WWE as they realise at his age he isnt going to be signing some 5 year contract. I can only assume its cos he, again, didnt want to sign up to do the entire house show run alongside the PPVs and TV which is why he has always gotten along so well with TNA. Which sucks, but if it doesnt happen he still had an awesome career.

What is the latest on him btw, last i heard he wrecked his ankle in a taping a few days ago, confirmed serious?

Someone posted in the TNA thread (I think) that he tore his achilles and was confirmed retired from in ring competition. Now, I didn't watch the clip posted, but if the interview was taken after the injury, then colour me fibbin'.

Idk how I'm just now finding these videos but they are awesome:

What has two thumbs and ****ing loves JBL?

Had to share this from WrestlingWithText, from TNA's London show this week. Made me lol, mostly because I'm in the 'Extreme Mark Out Zone'.

Hahahahahaha, the blacked out cricket bat instead of baseball bat is an awesome touch.

Well done.

Isn't it?

Wade Barrett should work a cricket gimmick IMO, would be hilarious. He could come to the ring in whites, full pads etc with a wide-brimmed hat on. Sick heel heat.