At the start of the year, I wanted to write a column based on how the last decade will be viewed in terms of wrestling history, but to round off a particular decade can be difficult considering the 2000’s alone had the tail end of the attitude era and the gradual build to what has become the Cena Era in wrestling. In a sense, that description alone can describe the decade – in that after all opposing threats were taken out of the equation, the WWE slowly changed into the company we see today.
Becoming the only force in American wrestling, the WWE had a particularly large amount of power. Many have commented that since the competition folded, backstage politics became a large factor as to whether people would be employed and ultimately pushed. After the Austin Era dwindled away and it was clear that the attitude was gone, the politics slowly became more apparent, with the bosses son-in-law getting large amounts of screen time and lengthy title runs – runs that would ultimately prove to be some of the longest in the decade.
Whilst the period itself had memorable moments, it had nothing that made it stood out as anything special – historically speaking that is. However, it was during this transitional stage that a young man by the name of John Cena would debut for the company and truly make his mark on the wrestling world.
Still seemingly influenced by backstage politics, the era with Cena at the forefront has largely consisted of stars that are consistently in the title picture. This is by no means a new business model – one or two stars have always dominated the scene from Hulk Hogan to Bret Hart and HBK to The Rock and Stone Cold. However, this era seems to be leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many.
This era of wrestling has followed the same mold as previous generations. During the Bret Hart era, The Hitman had particularly lengthy reigns as champion and ultimately the question was, ‘is anyone good enough to dethrone the only two-time The King of The Ring winner?’ and preceding that we were wondering if anyone had the power to stop the might of Hulkamania. This, by no means was a new concept in the Hulk Era of wrestling either – in fact, this mentality of the top dog in wrestling goes back to the 60’s with Bruno Sammartino’s extensive reign as the top dog.
During the famous Attitude Era, many stars dominated the many event scene from Austin and Rock to Triple H, Undertaker, Mankind and even Vince himself to an extent. Similar to how the company is run today, 1999 saw numerous title changes with 11 in total. Within three days of both the start and end of the year, two more reigns can be added to the tally. Therefore increasing the title reign tally to 13 over a 370 day period and a total of 7 different title holders.
November 2008 saw the end of an extensive title run by Triple H, the last run of such magnitude until the recent reign of The Undertaker which lasted 140 days. Since that November, The WWE Title has changed hands 13 times whereas the World Heavyweight Championship has changed a total of 11 times with 7 and 6 different title holders respectively. Not too different to how things were run in 1999. However, combined, only 10 different men have held one of the two titles since November 2008, so that could be a testament to how the show is run, in that stars are frequently moved over from a brand for fresh competition, this however hasn’t been the case, as in most circumstances, the same competition is now on the other brand too.
Arguably, the Cena Era began on April 3rd 2005 at Wrestlemania 21. I suggest this date based solely on the fact that both Cena and Batista both won their first major title at the event. Batista, as you know is just as important as Cena in that the company has usually focused on one or the other in some manner, bar when they’re injured. The period has usually seen Cena and Batista as the top two faces, whereas Edge and Orton have been considered the top two heels. However, three veterans (namely Taker, Triple H and HBK) have still been featured heavily over the last five years or so. These 7 men are the top tier players of this generation.
For example, since 2005, there has been a total of 86 PPV’s with 22 of those only featuring one title. I’ve calculated that since Wrestlemania 21, there have been approximately 126 title defenses on a PPV. Given, some PPV’s have not had a title defense but I think this evens out with the extra defenses in one night, such as the past PPV with Batista and Cena giving the event its third title defense.
Moving on, out of those 126 possible main events, only 10 have not featured any of the aforementioned stars. Two of those were ECW events and four of those matches were between Punk and Hardy last year. So between Cena, Batista, Triple H, HBK, Taker, Randy and Edge, they have shared a total of 116 main events since Wrestlemania 21 and up to and including this year’s Wrestlemania. With that said, I’ve only restricted my argument to PPV matches and championship matches, if we extend the search to non-title main events, there would be plenty more such as the Elimination Chambers last year, each and every Survivor Series Elimination Match, the obvious Wrestlemania Streak matches, DX main events and solo bouts such as HBK and Hogan or HBK and Flair, not to mention of a possible 5 Royal Rumble winners, only one star has won the event, who is not included in the aforementioned. I think it is fair to say that those seven stars have been the dominant features in this era of wrestling.
By the way, I apologize if my calculations are slightly off.
As an internet columnist, I automatically get pigeonholed as a John Cena hater; some people may even go as far to say that I, along with the online masses of wrestling fans have a problem with the current product. In some manners, I do fall into the category, but this is by no means a rant about the current stars and/or product, but rather an observation and a theory.
I highlighted earlier about other ‘eras’ in the history of professional wrestling, making a point about the Hogan, Hart and Austin Era’s. Today, WWE, following a successfully tested business model have in a sense done nothing overly different from their previous generations. Like Hogan and Hart and Austin, Vince has picked his boy (or in this case, boys) to spearhead the company and in this case it has been Cena and Batista.
Obvious differences between the two modern stars and the earlier headliners are the lack of feasible competition. Hogan was challenged by Piper and Bundy and the duo of Andre and DiBiase. In his later years, he was threatened by Slaughter, Savage and Warrior. The frequently changing competition made the bouts interesting as you were always questioning whether they could be the one to finally lay Hulkamania to rest. During the Hart Era, Bret had an extensive feud with HBK but was nonetheless presented with even more viable threats in the forms of Yokozuna, Lugar, Diesel, Syd and later, his brother Owen. Cena and Batista were indeed presented with similar threats by the likes of Angle, King Booker, Khali, Christian and Jericho. Once WWE decided the time was right, we were treated to the much larger threats of Randy, Edge, HHH, HBK and Taker. The problem however is that these feuds have now come to dominate the product and finally, the feuds are beginning to run their course which is possibly why a new element has been added to the equation, in the form of Sheamus. If anything, the WWE today has reached the same point the Austin era did in that the stars in the main event picture would always be fighting against each other again in some manner, but unlike the previous era, the WWE doesn’t have exciting new concepts that it used to, but rather toned down shadows of what wrestling used to be.
Finally (at least in my opinion), we have reached the final stretch of this era of wrestling. Most of the possible feuds between the seven stars have been done, with the exception of a major feud between the two chosen boys themselves. With most of the feuds complete, the WWE will have to start looking into other avenues for a different main event because the aforementioned stars have ploughed their way through most of the roster and whilst this era still has some possibilities inside of it and whilst it is highly likely that these stars will continue to carry the product for another year or two, I think it is reasonable to assume that a new dawn is approaching.
What started as an idea to write a column summing up an entire decade quickly formed into another about the said era we’re in, a primary catalyst for the writing was in fact the idea that the big feud is finally happening. You see, with TNA making an attempt to compete with WWE and if TNA do turn things around, people have another option in sports entertainment. This may become clearer in the near future but if the WWE are not fixing the holes where the rain gets in, then many viewers will indeed go wandering, because the kids who you are marketing the product to, will get old and they will rebel against what it is the WWE are pushing onto us. They will indeed get to an age where a guy spitting childish remarks and little green men aren’t interesting. On the plus side however, WWE have many cards up their sleeves that they can play that can easily draw ratings back in the future, like an eventual Cena heel turn.
John Cena was chosen as the poster boy of this era so it’s fair to focus on him when discussing it. The question is, why has this era been highly unpopular with modern fans? Now, before anyone gets on their high horse and starts assuming that I’m bagging Cena because I’m an internet fan and share the thoughts of other people alike, you should quickly consider that Cena is not just disliked by internet fans but general fans too. Evidence of this is apparent in his constant mixed reactions. In comparison, no top star has ever received such a reception on a constant basis, unless of course they turned heel and were intending on receiving such heat and I do mean ‘top star’, not an over pushed wank who never went anywhere.
The thing is, women still love Cena and kids still idolize him, so that’s why his getting the gig. However, from an internet fan perspective, what makes Cena different? Basically, the star has done nothing that different from say Hulk Hogan but the problem herein lies in the fact that this isn’t the 80’s. Wrestling fans have come to expect edginess from its stars, a quality Cena has obviously dropped in the last few years. Having a particular edge to a character is really all a wrestler needs, look at Austin or Rock. Neither were particularly great in the ring, but both had personality traits that made us love them. Cena had similar traits to begin with but over time, has lost them. In turn, we’ve grown to dislike him.
Cena has become even more child like over the last few years and it’s highly likely that this has made us hate him even more. We say that we’re bored of his in ring work but he always has decent matches and not much has changed since we did love him but the overall childlike attitude has become annoying. I doubt whether it would have worked in the 80’s, because even though Hogan and Cena have many similarities, the biggest difference is that Hogan was still serious, rather then a PG Rated Clown.
Before this era officially began, wrestling had (to an extent) reached its potential in terms of how to make exciting new matches and exciting new characters. Whilst it still is incredibly easy to make the stories interesting, it reached a point where most things have now been tried and tested, except one – turning wrestling into a PG Rated Product and this, if anything has been the downfall of the modern product in some terms. Carrying on from what I was saying before, this idea has made us dislike Cena even more, for suggesting wrestling should be turned into a PG product, but the fact is, it isn’t just Cena. DX have been increasingly silly, Hornswoggle is in no way helping make the product more viable as a wrestling company and everything we loved about wrestling in the Attitude Era has slowly been torn away, such as the crazier cruiserweight moves and more importantly, the blood. All of this can be simply put down to the fact that with no one to compete against, the WWE now protects its assets extensively.
With that said, this article has been about the last decade in that the earlier events greatly influenced how the product shaped over the proceeding ten years. However, like I said before, eventually we will reach a new era, whether it is through TNA making a good claim for the top spot or the kids growing old, the fact is eventually it will happen. I’m particularly optimistic because as I pointed out, it has all been done now.
Here’s hoping for change sooner rather then later. Until next time…
