WWE's Worst Nightmare - John Cena Is Hurt And Will Be Out Of Action Until After Wrestlemania

FoxSports - WWE’s Road to WrestleMania hit a huge pothole on Wednesday. Former champion John Cena will have shoulder surgery and will likely miss the Super Bowl of Pro Wrestling, which is to take place on April 3 at AT&T Stadium in Texas. The news was broken by PWInsider.com’s Mike Johnson. Cena confirmed the injury, believed to be a torn labrum, through his Twitter account. The surgery, which will take place Thursday, will be performed by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama. Recovery time for this type of procedure would be six to nine months.

Your face when John Cena, Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, Tyson Kidd, and Nikki Bella are all hurt?

Think about that list of people. Between Cena, Rollins, Orton, and Bryan, that’s pretty much all your main eventers for the last 10 years. All hurt.

In the Jerry Jones/Vince McMahon blog I joked about Cena getting hurt before Mania. And now that has happened. Terrible, terribleeeee news. Wrestlemania in Cowboys Stadium in front of 100,000 people was supposed to be the biggest Mania ever. John Cena has been THE guy in WWE for the last decade. I’ve been saying for months how despite everything, despite all the rumors such as Undertaker vs Cena, there was no way John Fucking Cena wasn’t main eventing. He’s still the biggest name in WWE, still what moves the most merch, still the most mainstream/crossover star. He’s been on TV once in the last 2 months and still was featured on the Royal Rumble poster. And now WWE needs to rebook everything.

And we all know what the biggest problem here is- it’s not Cena being hurt…it’s the fact they haven’t built any other stars. They have put all their chips into the Roman Reigns basket, every episode of Raw squarely revolves around Reigns, and nobody else is even close to him. Even guys like Ambrose and Owens don’t get close to the amount of screentime as Reigns. And even Reigns is involved in that feud because his friendship with Ambrose. Back in the day it was ok to have several top guys battling it out, now they handpick one guy and push him to the moon, and that’s going to come back and fuck them now.

So what’s the play now? The rumor has been HHH vs Reigns at Mania, but I’ve never bought that, I always said it would be Cena vs Reigns with Reigns winning. A passing of the baton of sorts. Now? Reigns goes over Lesnar in the main event. HHH vs Reigns will probably happen at Fastlane, which is kind of a big match on a throwaway PPV, which I dig.

The funny thing is, it’ll just keep being business as usual. IF you think other people are getting huge pushes because of this, you’re mistaken. This is the Roman Reigns show. Vince has no intentions of stopping it now.

And a few fun things to think about- Daniel Bryan has been cleared by every doctor but the WWE doctor. Some think it’s backstage politics- if Bryan came back he’d be more popular than Reigns, and WWE doesn’t want that. But people LOVE Daniel Bryan. His return, maybe on the Raw after the Rumble, would be a big spark. Maybe they decide now that he is healthy enough to compete in one last match at Mania?

I also would enjoy Undertaker vs Kane at Mania to bring that 20 year long storyline full circle.

The Rock is definitely working a match at Mania now. A lot of people thought it would be Rock vs Brock, but as I said above, I think Brock is now main eventing vs Reigns. So Rock vs….I don’t even know? Owens?

Also if Ronda Rousey hadn’t committed to Mania yet, she has all the leverage in the world. They now need her more than she needs them.

Should be interesting to see where they go from here.

 

PS: I guess this is what happens when you have your guys working 250+ days a year. Work, travel, appearance, work, work, work, terrible hotel beds, working out every day, falling off ladders, one day off, etc. It’s now caught up to them. Possibly time to rethink their schedules.