If you had said a week ago that Edge would be WWE World Champion on WWE New Year’s Revolution I never would have believed you.
However, the Rated R Superstar is getting a chance to run with the ball for the first time in his career. Though he got a great pop for being the man to take the title from John Cena in Albany, NY, WWE made the decision to put the strap on Edge to regroup and figure out another way to present John Cena to the crowd as the “fan favorite”, to face a guy that isn’t Kurt Angle who is always over with the fans no matter what he does. We won’t know how good this theory will keep on holding until WWE travels for other tapings and house shows but for at least for Monday’s show in Hershey, PA, it worked.
However, WWE did not accurately portray the jeers Cena got during New Year’s Revolution during the intro video recapping what happened. When Cena came out on during RAW, they showed all pro-Cena signs, setting up a belief and a unconscious “feeling” with the viewer that they too should cheer for John. Cena did address the “haters” out there by saying: “To all the fans who are drinking haterade, you can kiss my ass. Because tonight I am making a choice, my choice to cash in on my rematch clause.” He was also able to thank his “soldiers” for sticking with him, and since his fan base is just as passionate as his opposing base, his promo came off as strong. Unless there is another major fan revolt of Cena, I think we can only expect to see Cena stay face until at least Wrestlemania because of all the merchandise money he’s bringing in.
You know who’s bringing in more merchandise as of this writing? Eddie Guerrero and Edge are both in the top two over at wweshopzone.com. To Cena’s credit, three of his items are in the top ten, however, Edge’s “Rated R Superstar” t-shirt is a well designed, catchy t-shirt that makes Edge “cool” when he hasn’t been “cool” for months. The key to Edge’s success right now is the fact he’s not only a first time WWE World Champion, he has been able to make the Matt Hardy saga no longer the main focus of every storyline he’s involved in. I felt he has started to break out with the work he’s done with his storyline with Ric Flair, and I hope that it isn’t over quite yet because given more than five minutes of match time, they could keep it going for a intriguing storyline. Right now however, I think Flair’s role was obvious on Monday, being himself, putting Lita in the Figure Four for a minute, bleed and bump and John Cena makes the save giving him the pop that WWE wants by default. This formula has worked before, and though I’m not a fan of having simulated sex on a wrestling show, especially in a wrestling ring, they did nothing that hasn’t been done on Silk Stalkings that was once on USA before. They did give viewers plenty of warning to tune out if they were offended, and it had a point to it, it gives Edge a Brian Pillman type mentality and it gives Cena a chance to be the hero. Since the segment got a 5.2, you can’t argue with ratings, at the very least people’s curiosities got them tuning in.
The audience is the key in the direction right now, if there is a movement to have Cena turn heel, it’s up to the live audiences to show it. If Edge continues bringing in high ratings for his segments and his shirt continues to rank so high in sales, Edge may at least have the belt until Wrestlemania. John Cena did say it best, it is all about choices, and no matter how you feel about John Cena, he is getting people to react one passionate way or the other and that’s putting it in perspective. Thanks for reading, as always feel free to drop me a line at Bam@4sternstaging.com.
