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Yeah its crazy to think how much hes dominated the WWE in the past decade. And the best thing is, hes become this megastar so whenever someone gets a win over him (albeit rarely) its a huge deal. Thats when you know you're there, at that level with Hogan and Bruno. When losing a match is a big deal and ususlly a huge shock.
Who else on the full time roster has that kind of aura?
Orton, Batista, Bryan - they all lose cleanly quite regularly compared to Cena.
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Bruno, Hogan and Cena have indeed had the longest run... i mean i could really go on a bit about this, but in a nutshell the wwe2k14 video game has you play through all the mania's and it's non stop hogan for the first 8 or 9 of them.. (don't think the WM 1 match was in) and then later on its 10 years of Cena and that just summed it up for me... so many guys have come and gone in his time... will it ever be up?
I think they did André v Studd for Mania I.
Yeah, Cena has been around way too long. When Sammartino and Hogan were on top for ten years, they'd rarely - if ever - appear on TV. There was one hour long show per week. Now we have five hours of first run TV every week, and while Cena may only have one or two segments on that he's still had more screen time than all but a handful of guys in wrestling's history. Who has been as pushed for as long as Cena? Hogan through his WCW run, Triple H...that's about it! It's the nature of the business now though, a ton of TV and fewer stars being made due to lack of competition.
It looks like he may be on the way down now. They're making more of an effort than ever to push some new faces and Cena actually lost clean at SummerSlam and TLC. Two clean losses in four months? How long has it been since he last did that? It looks like he's more of a gatekeeper these days, preparing the likes of Wyatt for the main event. I hope that's how it'll be anyway, I've had more than enough of the champ being here.
I've thought about this very often and brought it up to a few of my friends. Austin and Rock, both who were faces of the wrestling "boom" if you will during the Attitude Era were at the top for what, four years? Austin from '97-'01 (he wrestled in '02 but left in June, so count that for what you will) and Rock from around '98-'02 when he left following the loss to Brock at SummerSlam. That's four years. John Cena is going on ten, and doesn't look to be slowing down. And you know what the main thing is?...
He was their top face for the entire period!
That's the other point. Guys like Rock, Austin, they all had their spurts as heels. It may not have been years (in Austin's case), but the Rattlesnake is easily one of the biggest faces in wrestling history. I know Hogan was big back in the day, but damn it, you'd be hard pressed to not go into public in the late 90's and not see some form of a Stone Cold t-shirt. That guy had everyone in his hand, and even HE turned heel. John Cena, it's been the same running train for actually ten years now seeing as how the last time he was heel was in 2003. I remember he beat Show for the US Title at WMXX and he was a face, because they made it into a way bigger deal than it actually was.
So outside of Bruno, Hogan was a straight face from '83-'93 and Cena is just catching up to that. Everything else from here on out is Cena in his own ballpark. Like chux said, it's a different game now. Three television shows (including Main Event), and let's not forget about his part time status on Total Divas. Some people question why Cena get's booed? He's the good guy that never goes bad. The ultimate do-gooder. It may have worked in the 80's with Hogan, but we live in a different world now a days. Being bad is "cool" (not necessarily just in wrestling terms either).
But I will say this. When Cena turns heel, it's going to change the entire game just like when Hogan did. It's similar to the streak. Everyone's pondered over it for so long that when it happens it's going to be a "Oh my god, they actually did it" type thing. I still feel the best thing to do is have Bryan make Cena tap at 'Mania next year, giving him his true WrestleMania moment and cement himself as the #1 guy before Cena shakes his hand... and then turns heel. Plus, in that scenario, you have Brock (who's the only heel who CAN win the title now. C'mon, Orton, Batista, Hunter? He beat 'em all in one night. Nobody else is close to being over enough) drop the belt to either Cesaro or Reigns and you have another top name face solidified as well. /rant
Twitter: @Krone315
That's the other point. Guys like Rock, Austin, they all had their spurts as heels. It may not have been years (in Austin's case), but the Rattlesnake is easily one of the biggest faces in wrestling history. I know Hogan was big back in the day, but damn it, you'd be hard pressed to not go into public in the late 90's and not see some form of a Stone Cold t-shirt. That guy had everyone in his hand, and even HE turned heel. John Cena, it's been the same running train for actually ten years now seeing as how the last time he was heel was in 2003. I remember he beat Show for the US Title at WMXX and he was a face, because they made it into a way bigger deal than it actually was.
I think Cena getting booed out of arena's all over the world for a good part of his run sort of made turning him heel pointless. He's sort of like Justin Bieber, the people who love him will die for him and the people who hate him wanna kill him. There's no point in trying to get the people who hate him on board because the people who love him are a much bigger number.
I was thinking about this the other day. John Cena has to be equalling or about to surpass Hogan & Bruno as the longest running face or top guy the WWE has ever had. Bruno had some long runs in the 60's & 70's with the belt. I think one was seven years and the other was four years. The caveat with him is it was still a north east territory albeit with exhibition matches in other cities and internationally. Hogan has a stronger claim, he had the belt from 1984 to 1988 but never really lost his stature until 1992 when he had a year off for the steroids stuff. The passing of the torch to Warrior didn't waiver his ability to be on the A house shows or sell the most merchandise and when Warriors title reign didn't work out, Hogan got the belt back. By now the boom had happened nationally and they were venturing into International markets.
The mid 90's you had Shawn & Bret having about two to three years a piece as the main guy. Then Austin got traction around 1998 up to 2002. Whilst Rock is making waves from 1999 to 2003. The pair were two of the biggest draws in WWE & wrestling history but their runs at the top were cut short due to injury and more lucrative aspirations.
Fast Forward to April 2005 and Cena wins the WWE Title. Two months later he flips over to RAW in the draft and has stayed there ever since. With some mind trickery and clever rebranding, the WWE title which use to be the 2nd string world title gets promoted to the main world title and the world heavyweight title moves down to Smackdown. Cena has so far racked up 11 WWE title reigns & 3 World title reigns. He is listed as 2013's biggest merchandise seller at live events and online by the WON. He was the top, full time wrestler who gained the most viewers on RAW each week in 2013. Rock & Brock were 1 & 2 but they're part time talent.
So what I'm basically saying is that John Cena is the longest running top guy/face of the WWE has ever had. And I don't think it will end that soon, which is interesting because of how short attention spans have become. Cena dropping the belt, taking a backseat with a movie or a different feud, then picking the belt back up again down the line. Seems to have worked with his staying power. Agree? Disagree? Don't care?