WWE certainly made an impression at their ESPN debut Wrestlepalooza, though it’s not exactly a positive one regarding John Cena’s retirement tour. That’s because Cena had to endure not one, not two, but ultimately 7 F5s in a match where he was absolutely destroyed by Brock Lesnar, a match that actually made children in the crowd (some of whom were with Cena during his entrance) cry. After such a deflating battle, there’s only one way WWE can make it right; otherwise, this will go down as the low point of Cena’s final year.
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So, how do they fix this? Well, given that Lesnar has more dates in his contract, you have to run this back, and you have to do it soon, as time is running out on Cena’s farewell tour. If you do run it back, Cena has to finally overcome Lesnar and do so in convincing fashion, because the type of win actually matters; otherwise, it won’t have the impact that is required.
A One-Sided Rivalry
To put this into perspective, this is part of a long-standing wall for Cena, as he has only won two of their six total match-ups, and one of those was a win by disqualification. Now Cena has one more loss that’s fresh in the minds of fans, but it actually means a bit more than that.
This match was eerily reminiscent of their infamous SummerSlam match back in 2014, which is the most one-sided match in SummerSlam history. That match took place during the height of Super Cena status too, and it didn’t even matter, as Lesnar demolished Cena and introduced everyone to Suplex City in a massive win. Now Lesnar’s added another devastating win to his resume and an equally devastating loss to Cena’s, and to say it left a bad taste in fans’ mouths would be an understatement.
How to Fix It (And Fast)
There are two main issues at play when trying to give Cena’s final year a quality ending, and an ending fit for one of the greatest of all time. The first is time, as Cena was likely written off TV here to work on his various film and TV projects, so he won’t be back on WWE TV to move this forward until October 11th at Crown Jewel in Perth.
After that, Cena only has 4 more appearances left, including November 11th on Raw, November 17th on Raw, Survivor Series WarGames on November 29th, and his final match in December on Saturday Night’s Main Event. If you’re going to build to a rematch at Perth, it’s likely not going to include Cena much, as he won’t be around to promote it. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it will certainly be one-sided TV presence-wise.
That leaves Survivor Series WarGames as the most likely place to hold the rematch, and if you do that, you’ve at least got two episodes of Raw to build it. If this is the case, Cena doesn’t just need to make the match competitive, but he’s got to win convincingly, and that means your monster taking a loss.
Some may doubt that Lesnar losing will happen, but it’s certainly happened before, with Goldberg’s famous win coming to mind. With this though Cena needs to weather the storm and hit back hard, countering some F5s and pinning, yes, pinning, Brock Lesnar. If he does, he conquers The Beast once and for all, and gives all of his fans, including the ones who were so sad tonight, something huge to cheer about.
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