Where Does John Cena Rank Among The WWE/Wrestling Greats?

[CaptainCrunch67]

I respect the undertaker a lot, but I always through of him as more of a foil character then a guy who really drove the business. I'd also put him on a lower level as far as technical skills go. He was a big guy that really didn't sell much because of his character.

 

[GlitchMarner]

I can't put HBK up there because of his total body of work, not just his I found god aftermath.

He was a poor draw and he pretty much walked away from the World Title more then once for selfish reasons.

To be fair, the WWF was in bad shape when he was the top dog. 1996 is one of the company's worst years in the last three decades.

It also didn't help him that he was given a vanilla baby face character that didn't suit him well and he was competing against the nWo angle when it was the biggest thing in wrestling.

If you swap prime Cena with Michaels in 1996, I can't imagine he draws much if any better (he's using that "Thug" character and it hasn't gotten stale yet).

I think people may be forgetting how divisive Cena was during the "Super Cena days;" it wasn't just ICW members that couldn't stand him; large sections of the crowd would cheer the guy when he was the top baby face in the WWE. The meme was, "all the women and children love him; the men hate him."

Another knock against him from a reception standpoint is that he was a face the vast majority if not the entirety of his stint as a main eventer. Could he have been an effective heel beyond 2003? We can't say for sure. There was speculation he might finally turn heel during the Nexus angle, but of course he never did.

 

[GarbageGoal]

Oh quality of work he’s on no list I’d come up with but neither is the Rock or Hogan. My focus was as a moneymaker and personality for the company. He’s kept them afloat thru some pretty lean times. Similar to Bruno.

 

[Disclose]

IVe always liked cena. His endless push not so much. But since his movie career has picked up and started showing less, I realized how fun he is and miss him in the ring.

Weather is fighting or talking

 

[GlitchMarner]

IVe always liked cena. His endless push not so much. But since his movie career has picked up and started showing less, I realized how fun he is and miss him in the ring.

Weather is fighting or talking

I don't mind him. I haven't really been a fan in over a decade (I remember I liked him when he first started rapping), but I do respect the guy. He seems like a good guy, at least as far as pro wrestlers go, and like a good ambassador for the sport.

 

[CaptainCrunch67]

To be fair, the WWF was in bad shape when he was the top dog. 1996 is one of the company's worst years in the last three decades.

It also didn't help him that he was given a vanilla baby face character that didn't suit him well and he was competing against the nWo angle when it was the biggest thing in wrestling.

If you swap prime Cena with Michaels in 1996, I can't imagine he draws much if any better (he's using that "Thug" character and it hasn't gotten stale yet).

I think people may be forgetting how divisive Cena was during the "Super Cena days;" it wasn't just ICW members that couldn't stand him; large sections of the crowd would cheer the guy when he was the top baby face in the WWE. The meme was, "all the women and children love him; the men hate him."

Another knock against him from a reception standpoint is that he was a face the vast majority if not the entirety of his stint as a main eventer. Could he have been an effective heel beyond 2003? We can't say for sure. There was speculation he might finally turn heel during the Nexus angle, but of course he never did.

You make some good points, I won't argue that.

Part of the problem was that HBK just wasn't much of a draw as a main event headliner

I pulled this up from another fans research

And still the WWE machine try to manipulate the fans to turn him goat.

Royal Rumble PPV buyrates:
(1.10) - Bret Hart vs. Taker - RR 96
(1.00) - Diesel vs. Bret Hart - RR 95
(0.90) - Yokozuna vs. Taker - RR 94
(0.70) - HBK vs. Sid - RR 97

WrestleMania PPV buyrates:
(1.68 grossing $5.2 million) - Bret Hart vs. Yokozuna - WM 94
(1.40 grossing $5.1 million) - Diesel vs. HBK - WM 95
(1.20 grossing $4.0 million) - HBK vs. Bret Hart - WM 96
(0.77 grossing $2.5 million) - Taker vs. Sid - WM 97

King of the Ring PPV buyrates:
(0.85) - Piper vs. Lawler - KOTR 94
(0.65 ) - Diesel/Bigelow vs. Sid/Tatanka - KOTR 95
(0.60) - HBK vs. Bulldog - KOTR 96
(0.50) - Taker vs. Farooq - KOTR 97

SummerSlam PPV buyrates:
(1.30) - Taker vs. Taker - SS 94
(0.90) - Diesel vs. Mabel - SS 95
(0.80) - Bret Hart vs. Taker - SS 97
(0.58) - HBK vs. Vader - SS 96

Survivor Series PPV buyrate:
(0.90) - Taker vs. Yokozuna - SS 94
(0.89) - Bret Hart vs. HBK - SS 97
(0.58) - HBK vs. Sid - SS 96
(0.57) - Diesel vs. Bret Hart - SS 95

In Your House PPV buyrates:
(0.83) - Diesel vs. Sid - IYH 1 [14 May 95]
(0.75) - Diesel vs. Bret Hart - IYH 6 [18 Feb 96]
(0.70) - Diesel vs. Sid - IYH 2 [23 July 95]
(0.70) - Diesel/HBK vs. Yokozuna/Bulldog - IYH 3 [24 Sept 95]
(0.65) - Diesel vs. HBK - IYH 7 [28 April 96]
(0.60) - HBK vs. Taker - IYH 18 [5 Oct 97]
(0.59) - Hart Foundation vs. Team USA - IYH 16 [6 July 97]
(0.57) - Austin vs. Taker - IYH 15 [11 May 97]
(0.50) - Bret Hart vs Taker vs Austin vs Vader - IYH 13 [16 Feb 97]
(0.50) - Bret Hart vs. Austin - IYH 14 [20 April 97]
(0.48) - HBK vs. Mankind - IYH 10 [22 Sept 96]
(0.45) - HBK vs. Bulldog - IYH 8 [26 & 28 May 96]
(0.45) - HBK vs. Taker - IYH 17 [7 Sept 97]
(0.44) - HBK vs. Shamrock - IYH 19 [7 Dec 97]
(0.40) - Diesel vs. Bulldog - IYH 4 [22 Oct 95]
(0.40) - Taker vs. Mankind - IYH 11 [20 Oct 96]
(0.37) - Vader/Owen/Bulldog vs. HBK/AJ/Sid - IYH 9 [21 July 96]
(0.35) - Bret Hart vs. Sid - IYH 12 [15 Dec 96]
(0.33) - Bret Hart vs. Bulldog - IYH 5 [17 Dec 95]

Diesel/HBK comparison:
(1.00) RR 95 - (0.70) RR 97 (bigger draw = Diesel)
(1.40) WM 95 - (1.20) WM 96 (bigger draw = Diesel)
(0.83) IYH May 95 - (0.45) IYH May 96 (bigger draw = Diesel)
(0.65) KOTR 95 - (0.60) KOTR 96 (bigger draw = Diesel)
(0.70) IYH July 95 - (0.37) IYH July 96 (bigger draw = Diesel)
(0.90) SS 95 - (0.58) SS 96 (bigger draw = Diesel)
(0.70) IYH Sept 95 - (0.48) IYH Sept 96 (bigger draw = Diesel)

Vanilla baby face or not, he just didn't really draw.

John Cena was certainly divisive, but he was nowhere near as destructive as Sean was in his day. He did a great job of reinventing himself and reforming himself after his conversion, but people forget how outright hated he was in the WWE locker room, to the point that Undertaker threatened him with a beating to death.

Also people tend to forget that at its height of dominance people started to get pretty sick of the kliq and then later De-Generation X even though HHH takes a lot of heat for that.

Cena drew because of his face character, he appealed to their main demographic at the time but the people that really hated him were the smarks who wanted anyone pushed but him. But his appeal to kids and the general non smark market generated a ton of money and merchandising cash.

In comparison of in ring skills, Sean Michaels is just far better. But as someone pointed out, I can't remember a really terrible John Cena match, but I can remember a lot of really safe John Cena matches, in that way he was similar to the Rock.

Also Cena's image just blows away Sean's, the charitable stuff and his ability to transcend out of Wrestling is very Rock like and only two performers have pulled them off and that's the Rock and Cena, unless your into low budget Christian movies.

 

[Fighter]

I'm surprised many people would pick Cena over Bret, HBK or Taker, to me there's no doubt they're superior to him.

 

[Disclose]

Bret is nowhere near close my list of best wrestlers.

 

[reckoning]

As far as actual in-ring wrestling goes, he's never really been anything special.

As far as how big a draw and star he was, he would get high marks. He's been the face of the most popular company in the world for over a decade.

As far as influence goes, that remains to be seen, but I haven't seen many of the recent crop of stars in wrestling with an obvious Cena influence in their work.

As far as importance to wrestling goes, he is undeniably a big star. But the WWE hasn't really suffered during any of his absences. He hasn't been the pivotal figure that determined whether fans did or didn't buy tickets.

So overall, his ranking depends on how much credit you give for being Vince McMahon's preferred choice for the last decade. I can see him being top 25, but definitely not top 10. Most here would rank him higher, but wrestling has been around for over 100 years, and is active all around the world. There's a lot of competition.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

I don’t think Taker was ever the big enough draw to surpass Cena on any lists unless it’s purely from an in-ring perspective.

 

[GarbageGoal]

I'm surprised many people would pick Cena over Bret, HBK or Taker, to me there's no doubt they're superior to him.

Trust me, I’d never put him over Bret on working ability. Hitman is top 5 as a wrestler on any list for me. Unfortunately Bret was a top guy during the worst era for business coming off the steroid trial along with Nash and Michaels although Bret’s world wide appeal gave WWE a whole other outlet to tap into that helped get them where they are now.

 

[JackSlater]

I'm somewhat confused by the question, and the answers given as people seem to be using kayfabe or money returns. Cena is the biggest star of a weak era so that helps in kayfabe terms I guess. When WWE spins its lore he'll always be ranked high in the same vein as Sammartino, because you don't have to be especially good to be WWE's top guy for an era. In money terms for WWE he is very clearly behind Austin and Hogan at the top and Rock as well. I'd have to think that in money terms he is behind Sammartino as well, and that's just looking at WWE and its predecessor promotions. I think that people also forget how tired people were of Undertaker for long stretches of his prime, even though he was basically never the top guy and wasn't overexposed.

On actual quality I wouldn't rank Cena high at all. He isn't particularly good in the ring, he can definitely talk but sadly he rarely uses that ability to actually cut good promos. I'd probably have to dig pretty deep into WWE wrestlers before I got to Cena if looking at how great someone actually was as a wrestler. If looking at all wrestlers in history it would be far worse.

 

[Merci Saku]

Bret is nowhere near close my list of best wrestlers.

So what are your qualifications of the best wrestlers then??

Because he's one the best technical wrestlers of all time

 

[Shoalzie]

i'd think top 10ish all time

That's pretty much what I was going to say. I wouldn't put him over most of the guys from the Attitude Era. Shawn, Undertaker, Bret, Austin, Rock...the biggest stars of the 90s made bigger impacts to the company. Cena has been more of a caretaker of the brand after it reached it's heights. I don't think he took it any higher.

 

[Paris in Flames]

I'm somewhat confused by the question, and the answers given as people seem to be using kayfabe or money returns. Cena is the biggest star of a weak era so that helps in kayfabe terms I guess. When WWE spins its lore he'll always be ranked high in the same vein as Sammartino, because you don't have to be especially good to be WWE's top guy for an era. In money terms for WWE he is very clearly behind Austin and Hogan at the top and Rock as well. I'd have to think that in money terms he is behind Sammartino as well, and that's just looking at WWE and its predecessor promotions. I think that people also forget how tired people were of Undertaker for long stretches of his prime, even though he was basically never the top guy and wasn't overexposed.

On actual quality I wouldn't rank Cena high at all. He isn't particularly good in the ring, he can definitely talk but sadly he rarely uses that ability to actually cut good promos. I'd probably have to dig pretty deep into WWE wrestlers before I got to Cena if looking at how great someone actually was as a wrestler. If looking at all wrestlers in history it would be far worse.

I feel saying Cena 'isn't particularly good in the ring' is a bit unfair to him. He's not an AJ Styles or Seth Rollins but he has a fairly long resume of decent to great matches, imo.

He's not incredible but he's good.

 

[JackSlater]

I feel saying Cena 'isn't particularly good in the ring' is a bit unfair to him. He's not an AJ Styles or Seth Rollins but he has a fairly long resume of decent to great matches, imo.

He's not incredible but he's good.

I suppose in a relative sense he could be good. Compared to a backyard wrestler he's good. Compared to the general wrestlers I see online or on tv he hasn't been particularly good. Compared to what I would expect from a top wrestler in the industry he's pretty bad.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Oh quality of work he’s on no list I’d come up with but neither is the Rock or Hogan. My focus was as a moneymaker and personality for the company. He’s kept them afloat thru some pretty lean times. Similar to Bruno.

That also depends on what you're throwing in there to call 'work'. Rock's quality of work may not come from his technical wrestling skills but he was very high in quality in terms of putting on an entertaining match and driving any story he is in to make it be the most relevant thing on any show he's on. He did that better than any wrestler in history. Cena, while charismatic, never had that sort of talent. His character was always vanilla in a stale manner, his in-ring work was more of the same, and while he was the face of the company for many years, I don't think WWE would've made any less money if he's not around at all. If they put their corporate weight behind anyone else, I think they do similar numbers. Nothing in his work changed the business and I don't see him being an influence on future performers. While HBK has his warts, his influence will always live on in future performers. Same for Bret Hart. Same for Austin. Same for Rock. Even the Undertaker has more of that going for him than Cena does.

With wrestling I don't care too much for longevity unless it's entertaining. Cena passed being entertaining more than a decade ago. I also don't think you can hold Cena up as a draw and then point to HBK or Bret's drawing ability at that time because it's not an apples to apples comparison due to mainstream competition or lack thereof. That and the whole Austin stuff where he becomes the biggest draw in the company doesn't happen without either HBK or Hart.

 

[Paris in Flames]

I suppose in a relative sense he could be good. Compared to a backyard wrestler he's good. Compared to the general wrestlers I see online or on tv he hasn't been particularly good. Compared to what I would expect from a top wrestler in the industry he's pretty bad.

Outside of AJ Styles and Rollins I probably can't remember the last time the top guy was legitimately great in the ring. At least WWE wise.

I suppose...Owens? But he was pretty meh and lazy at that point.

 

[JackSlater]

Outside of AJ Styles and Rollins I probably can't remember the last time the top guy was legitimately great in the ring. At least WWE wise.

I suppose...Owens? But he was pretty meh and lazy at that point.

I wouldn't call Rollins great in the ring, but he's good enough. WWE has a history of rallying behind mediocre in ring guys (Sammartino, Hogan, Cena) but that doesn't make it what I expect from the top wrestlers in the industry. Very good, like an Austin, would be fine as well for a top guy but Cena wasn't at that point for me either.

 

[Sheppy]

Bret is nowhere near close my list of best wrestlers.

I think Owen was better in every aspect.

 

[Sheppy]

Outside of AJ Styles and Rollins I probably can't remember the last time the top guy was legitimately great in the ring. At least WWE wise.

I suppose...Owens? But he was pretty meh and lazy at that point.

I'd say Angle, honestly.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Cena may not have been technically great but I was always sucked into his matches. They got the crowd going.

 

[Sheppy]

Cena may not have been technically great but I was always sucked into his matches. They got the crowd going.

I always found he worked robotic, and kind of like he had very little coordination. Whenever he would grab a leg, and they push him off he would do this robotic stumble back. Just something that really irritated me.

He did have good matches, though.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

I always found he worked robotic, and kind of like he had very little coordination. Whenever he would grab a leg, and they push him off he would do this robotic stumble back. Just something that really irritated me.

He did have good matches, though.

He’s too boxy and not very athletic or agile. He’s not like Roman who has the agility and athletic ability to be smoother in his movement (to compare two top guys of a similar elk). But at least he tried, and he had the psychology down to get the fans hooked.

 

[Cor]

He’s too boxy and not very athletic or agile. He’s not like Roman who has the agility and athletic ability to be smoother in his movement (to compare two top guys of a similar elk). But at least he tried, and he had the psychology down to get the fans hooked.

And that leads us to Psychology vs Athletic Ability and what is more important.

Taker and Cena for example aren't the best pure wrestlers in the world, but they knew how the psychology of a match works and can work the crowd during matches like no one else.