Thread 18507371

Now that the dust has settled, is this the greatest fumble of all time?

>>18507371 (OP)
nah

>>18507371 (OP)
it's in contention

>turning the top babyface in WWE of the last 20 years into a heel
>with The Rock by his side big celebrity
>turns out the heel turn was done last night with no real thought out into it, The Rock wasn't gonna be available even though he's baked into the storyline, and Cena looking like complete shit
People defending this shit for months saying it's intentionally bad was fucking retarded

>>18508974
it's been a while since i've felt so vindicated for shitting on something

>>18507371 (OP)
It's pretty bad. The Rock being involved for some reason ruined the start of Cena's heel run, which left a sour tone throughout the whole thing. It also felt certain that Cena would win because it'd be weird to turn him heel just to job out at 'mania.

In hindsight, they should have either done the heel turn at wrestlemania itself, which would have felt a lot bigger and drawn interest into the follow up. Or they should have had the Rock make royal rumble be for the title itself and Cena wins it there. Cody would have at least felt like he had a chance of winning, and the subsequent feuds would have been more interesting because they wouldn't be haunted by "Cena just won the title, he's not dropping it for awhile."

>>18507371 (OP)
Dunno why they didn't just do the turn at Mania. Would have been dimes.

Probably because Fragile Dwayne wanted to be involved even though he wasn't available for Mania.

>>18509084
>drawn interest into the follow up
nigga they drew interest with this and they couldn't really follow it up, why would post-mania have been different.
you think Cena will come out retirement for one last 'Mania match to make up for that one? I can't imagine he's happy about it.

>>18507371 (OP)
>is this the greatest fumble of all time?
Nah that's AEW. A botched heel turn is nothing compared to a botched opportunity to create a modern day WCW and reignite the monday night wars.

>>18509112
Rent free

>>18509118
But enough about the dicks that live in your ass

>>18509128
Thinking about gay sex again?

>>18509132
Nah that's you

>>18509136
You keep bringing up gay sex bro. If you're gay that's cool but projection is unhealthy

>>18509145
Actually you're the only one bringing up the words "gay sex". Is there something you'd like to tell us?

>>18507371 (OP)
still the Invasion

>>18509097
>nigga they drew interest with this and they couldn't really follow it up, why would post-mania have been different.
The heel turn happening at wrestlemania would have made that PPV feel a lot bigger. A big happening at the end can save an otherwise mid PPV. Look at wrestlemania 31.

>you think Cena will come out retirement for one last 'Mania match to make up for that one? I can't imagine he's happy about it.
I totally support him if he wants to. We've had plenty of fake retirements as it is. Hell, just returning at the rumble a few months after retiring to challenge Cody again would be a better storyline than WM41.

just let it play out

Top five fumbles for sure. Here's what I think they could have done differently.
Cena didn't need the Rock or Travis after EC leading up to Mania. But he DID need the Rock at Mania to show that selling his soul was worth the prize. Rock didn't need to show up every week to sell the story, only enough to feel his presence when he wasn't there. Then when Summerslam came around, Cena's turns on Rock, Cody takes advantage of it and gets a questionable win. That way, Cena has a memorable face turn and Cody's win is tainted by interference from the Rock, which can be used in a later storyline.

Of all time? Not even close. But it probably is for the post-Vince WWE

>>18509155
Just working with what you're giving me dude. Sexual depression, seemingly

I'd love to know what actually happened behind the scenes with this, but it seems like one of those where if people do start talking about it there will be 5 different stories on what happened

>>18509112
Trannies aren't gonna like hearing this one

>>18507371 (OP)
maybe

>>18508974
Worst celebrity guest in recent memory.

>>18507371 (OP)
Still Tony’s fumbles of Phil and especially Cody.

>biggest star of the generation
>doing an angle that everyone wanted to see
>executed in a way that just makes people ask when will it end
it was planned to be like this, so they can say "you think you do, but you don't" when the fans get behind any other idea in the future

>>18507371 (OP)
Id like to think tko learned a lesson here about inserting outsiders into major storylines in wwe but they didnt.
Dumb shit that derailed the biggest story of the year.

>>18508974
dronies will defend anything

https://youtu.be/zBgSJbDOjxg?si=PlpARiBmphiD-NUA
this is a reminder that we could've had The Rock as a on screen manager but instead we got shit interjected storylines like this.

>>18508974
It didn't even make sense anyway. What does The Rock even mean that he wants Cody's soul and for him to be his champion? Isn't that the proposal that should have happened between the 2024 Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania? Cody was already the champion so what incentive would he have to take The Rock's offer?
What happens if Cody says yes, does John Cena then shake his hand and they all celebrate? The whole Cena turn was predicated on Cody turning down The Rock since they established in Unreal the thought was Cena was working with Rock the entire time.

>>18509194
>Cena didn't need the Rock or Travis
cena could have just had truth turn with him

At least in modern wrestling i think 1, 2 and 3 are pretty set in stone with WCW from 1998-2001 and the WCW invasion being the top two. Then the Austin heel turn being number 3. After that you can make an argument for Cena's heel turn depending on how hot you thought the summer of Punk was and how badly it was fumbled away. There might be a few others from the 2000's on im not remembering but i dont think anything AEW did is higher then those 5 at least.

craziest thing about this was that after all this shit, cena face turned for no reason on some random smackdown and cut what can only be seen as a shoot promo burying the entire angle and brushing it under the rug as if it never happened

>>18507371 (OP)
It fucking reeked of Dwayne not getting what he wanted (aka a heel cody to go against and come out on top as the babyface) from the very beginning, and because of that, taking his ball and leaving.

>>18507371 (OP)
I don't know, sorry.

>>18510838
Like when Shawn no sold his heel turn after the Hogan match

>>18507371 (OP)
It's a top 10 fumble, but I can see myself getting over this eventually
To this day I still haven't gotten over the Invasion angle or that bullshit at Starrcade 1997

>>18510952
>Dwayne not getting what he wanted
His plan was face Cody vs heel KO but the latter was injured so the plan was scrapped. Cena heel turn and the soul stuff was an after though of the brass.

>>18507371 (OP)
>we're gonna turn the company's biggest face for the past 2 decades into a heel
>let's make sure to have Travis Scott a part of it for some reason
I will never understand that fucking decision. EVER.
From beginning to end, this heel turn was complete trash. What a stupid fucking waste of everyone's time

>>18507371 (OP)
It was the Taker's streak

This is genuinely worse than anything WCW did. Terrible booking and then they just dropped it like nothing happened. Tony Khan-tier booking

>>18513754
>This is genuinely worse than anything WCW did
Nah, still not as bad as letting some random D-list actor officially win their top title and be a part of its lineage
I will say I do think it's worse than the Starrcade '97 mess. Say what you want about that, but at least we got a near-perfect Sting/Hogan feud leading up to it
We didn't get one good thing out of this Cena heel turn. We can't even claim to have gotten a good heel version of Cena, his early Thuganomics run was a better heel run for him. Even the feud with Punk wasn't as good as his one from years earlier

>>18507371 (OP)
>>18508974
Isn't it funny how every "dream match" of Cena was half assed and turned to shit, it's as if they deliberately doing this to shit on fans, even this turn back to face wasn't like some redemption like Hogan with the Rock had, it was just "i'm good now weeee"

>>18513768
>still not as bad as letting some random D-list actor officially win their top title and be a part of its lineage
Give it time, he's already got a midcard reign under his belt

Still Invasion.

>>18513768
>Nah, still not as bad as letting some random D-list actor officially win their top title and be a part of its lineage
Friendly reminder that Vince booked himself to win two different world titles.

>>18507371 (OP)
1.) Cena heel turn
2.) AEW Punk
3.) Heel Austin

It's the greatest fumble of the last 20 years at the very least

>>18513970
Das right. Btw, Good Morning Saar!

Invasion has to be number 1 right? Ready made dimes drawing shows, angles and matches right there for the taking and they totally fumbled it. Austin's heel turn is number 2, though it is heavily connected to the Invasion but his turn and the Invasion were a 1-2 punch to kill the hot streak. It made no business sense, Austin was still red hot over but he wanted to be a mark and go heel for creative and artistic reasons. Cena's heel turn is number 3, what a total shitshow.

>>18513791
taker trained hard for that match so vince told him to squash cena in 5 mins as a rib lol

>>18514156
>Austin was still red hot over but he wanted to be a mark and go heel for creative and artistic reasons
Well. The Rock was the top face at the time so Austin wanted to take the top heel spot would be my guess still a retard decision because The Rock fuck-off to film a movie afterward and WWE was left with heel Austin without top face to play with, lmao.

>>18513947
Logan is legit better than anyone on the roster rn, he's the only one that should get a title, but of course Paul wouldn't want to upset smarks so he'll let him sit in the midcard until everyone stops caring and then give him a mediocre run

>>18514584
Logan needs weeks to rehearse his matches. You can’t do that as WWE champion and also do a podcast and all the other shit he does.

>>18514163
probably the only time in his last 5 WM matches he went into the match without some form of injury, too

>>18514602
WWE champions wrestle once a month now, so you absolutely can do that

>>18514602
54 year old Chris Jericho does a podcast, has two bands, has a cruise, narrates Dark Side of the Ring and more. All wrestlers today are basically part time compared to living on the road in the past.

>>18507371 (OP)
Still the Invasion, but this is probably top five.

The overlooked thing here is that Rock is on the board of directors. He should be more considered with things making sense and helping the product more than a retired wrestler like Undertaker or whoever. Rock and HHH apparently couldn't work out a compromise scenario where Rock appears in any capacity, like even a video message where he tells Cena he'll be watching him and then Cena tells him off or whatever. Rock is central to the Cena heel turn but now they basically want us to pretend it never happened.

>>18514793
I meant concerned not considered, autocorrect bitch

>>18514793
Rock don't give a fuck about WWE. Nick Khan and HHH basically control everything if these two said it's good then he roll with it.

>>18507371 (OP)
Unreal showed me that it was a great idea that was executed poorly. His path after EC was just darts being thrown at a wall with no clear path of what they wanted to do. Also, Rocky is just an ass for not committing to it 100%. Why get involved and not see it through? That bullshit line of, "If you gave Rock a truth serum, he would say that WWE is his most beloved". Fucking liar.

I really hate that heel Cena wasn't handled better. It had so much potential, and yet it never went anywhere. If you felt there wouldn't be enough time to do all the things you wanted, then fucking turn Cody heel and keep Cena as the face until his retirement day.

>>18513952
>Friendly reminder that Vince booked himself to win two different world titles.
Vince, while not technically an active-roster wrestler, was still a well-established onscreen wrestling character at that time, not some random Hollywood actor passing through
Plus he had a large-enough physique and height where he could be considered somewhat-legit competition to his opponents despite his age

>>18510660
Nah, Rock was needed there as a big name along with Cena
Cena with just Truth wouldn't have been as impactful
Literally the only thing wrong with Cena's initial turn was Travis Scott being there

looks like it

No. It was fine for what it is. Cena turning heel was never going to work as well as it should have when he came back. The fans love him too much at this point. He should have turned heel back in 2010/11 and then it would have been an incredible run.

I still liked his heel run. But it didn't really fit the time.

>>18509112
Modern day WCW is impossible, actual WCW had the Crockett days to go off of, no one has that sort of history nowadays. Monday Night Wars are impossible because there’s just no reason for it. Fox didn’t air The X-Files to compete against Law and Order or some shit like that. also because AEW sucks but even if it was good, those are just missteps regardless

>>18507371 (OP)
yes
but it was doomed from the start honestly
Rock was never going to play the bigger role he needed to play
Cena tried to play it too smarky and never got any actual heat
Fans cheered Cena because all they wanted was a reason to boo him
And Travis Scott? Why bother if you aren’t going to utilize the one thing he’s “good” at
>how to “fix” the run
Rocky has to be present more often, even if it’s literally just him walking out and looking at Cena
He has to do one match minimum and beat Cody again, like the Final Boss match at night one of Wrestlemania the year before, because you need a reason for Cena to want Rock on his side, the Rock would be Cody’s foil
Cena has to stop trying to play the crowd, they’re going to kill any heat with cheers when he speaks to them
The actions would speak, that’s why Cena’s turn actually worked quite well, he didn’t say anything
Cena probably should have went further, “injuring” Cody longer and tearing up any challenger between them
Finally keeping Cena’s theme was a mistake, even if it would be shittier, have Travis Scott and his guys mix a new theme
Keeping his theme you’ve either set it up for people to cheer him or people to ironically chant John Cena Sucks
I think the fans are an issue but they could have been worked, but it’s like they didn’t even try