No Chance – Dealing with John Cena’s Quick Return to the WWE at Hell In A Cell 2013

Columns, Top Story

There are many reactions that you might have had when you learned that John Cena’s 4-6 month absence was going to be cut drastically short and that he would be returning at Hell in a Cell. There’s a chance that you could be a fairly major Cena fan and are excited to see him back so soon after having prepared yourself for such a long time without your brightly colored hero. However, this being the internet and all, there is a far more likely chance that you, the reader, are not all that thrilled that Cena has come back so soon. Your complaints may vary but I would be willing to guess that by and large they revolve around the idea that Cena coming back is bad because it continues to drive home the idea that Cena, and only Cena, is capable of being the face of the company. For far too many years now, Cena has been the WWE’s number one guy. Cena’s time at the top is longer than The Rock’s and Stone Cold’s combined. I don’t think anyone is blind to the fact that Cena is closer to his retirement than his debut and a replacement guy (or a few new top guys) is desperately needed. What was about to be a prime opportunity to find this new top talent is now going to be filled with more Cena matches.

Very quickly, before getting to the main point that I want to make, I should point out that while some of this may be true, I’m not sure the situation is as dire as all that. Cena is returning yes, but he’s going to be competing for the World Championship, a title that is unquestionably a number two title to the WWE Championship’s number one slot. He won’t be fighting in a “Hell in a Cell” match, and it is still very likely that Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan are going to main event the evening. And while I’m sure that WWE is thrilled to have their cash cow back so soon, I find it very hard to believe that Cena is returning at 100%. Sure, he probably is healthy enough to be cleared for in ring competition, and he will more than likely to be able to put on a fairly impressive match this Sunday. (At least a fairly impressive match by Cena standards. Your mileage may vary on that one) But, I wouldn’t be surprised if backstage at WWE, people weren’t very aware that two months isn’t ideal healing time, and should things go south and Cena gets benched again…well, WrestleMania 30 is starting to creep closer and there is no way that Cena missing that card will be risked. So while Cena is back, and the WWE wants it to be a super large, big time, major deal, I just don’t think it is automatically the complaint worthy event that some people want it to be.

But here’s my real question. What if it was true? What if Cena came back so early simply because the numbers had been looked at and Daniel Bryan wasn’t pulling Cena numbers. Is that really such a bad thing? Don’t get me wrong, I am very much in the corner of Daniel Bryan being a number one guy in the company and I’ve quite enjoyed this feud, but the fact remains that numbers on Raw have been lower in the past few weeks and at the end of the day, the WWE is very much a business who’s end game is to make money. And yes, you can argue that numbers are low every year around this time because of football, but football or no football, if the WWE has a ratings boosting card up their sleeve (in this case John Cena) why shouldn’t they use it?

The big question here, is when is it time to bail on something? To me, on an entertainment level, the majority of the storyline between Bryan, Orton, Triple H and the whole cooperation angle has been somewhere between satisfactory and fantastic on the quality line. However, I can’t argue that it’s not pulling in amazing numbers each week audience wise. And yes I don’t think that if something is not an immediate success we should ditch it at once. The buildup and pay off is a critical part to successfully storytelling in any medium, wrestling or otherwise. But if something is just flat out not bringing in satisfactory numbers, how long do you let it try before pulling that plug? There’s no universally correct answer. It varies from story to story and situation to situation. Should WWE be showing more faith in Daniel Bryan as a top face for the company?

In trying to remove your personal feelings for Cena (whatever they may be) I want to end by highlighting a similar example from everyone’s favorite time in recent memory, 2011’s Summer of Punk. After Punk ran away from the company with the championship he was gone for about a month before making his return. Now we all knew that he would be back at some point but it was anybody’s guess as to when. Story wise, the longer Punk was away, the bigger an impact he would have when he returned. Just imagine Punk returning after a six-month absence to put his championship up against a champ who had been holding the title for half a year rather than just a handful of weeks. However the next PPV after that Money in the Bank match just happened to be SummerSlam and the WWE clearly wanted to have the big event match on that show. In that case the potential for big numbers trumped the potential for great storytelling. And while that might not be what I want from my entertainment, it’s something I can understand and why I can understand why WWE might be so eager to try and get those Cena numbers for Hell in a Cell.

Joel Leonard reviews the latest movies each week for Inside Pulse. You can follow him @joelgleo on Twitter though he's not promising to ever tweet anything from there. Joel also co-hosts the Classy Ring Attire podcast and writes the No Chance column on Inside Pulse as well.