Thought Of The Day – The Rock, John Cena, And Hypocritical Fans
This came to me last night and it’s another example of the fans complaining for the sake of complaining.The Rock won his first world title in November of 1998. He won his last in July 0f 2002. That’s less than four years and in that span, Rock won nine world titles: 7 WWF and 2 WCW.
John Cena won his first world title in April of 2005 and in four years, Cena had won six world titles: 4 WWE and 2 WHC.
The fans’ typical statements on these two:
Rock: ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY!
Cena: CENA SUCKS! HE ALWAYS HAS THE TITLE AND WINS IT ALL THE FREAKING TIME!
Even though Rock won more titles in a much shorter span of time. Rock would win nine titles in four years while Cena has won twelve in about seven years. Also keep in mind that most of Rock’s reigns were when only one title was available. To complain about Cena constantly winning titles while praising Rock as amazing is hypocrisy.
Rock never held the title for long. He held the title 3 times between Survivor Series and Wrestlemania 15 because he was constantly trading it with Foley. Then, he was in the midcard for a year before winning his 4th title from HHH at Backlash 2000. He traded the title with HHH and ended up with 5 reigns before having a 4 month reign that ended with Angle going over. He won the title for the 6th time at No Way Out to set up Wrestlemania X-7, where he lost it again. He won the WCW Title from Booker and dropped it to Jericho for a few weeks before regaining it and dropping it back to Jericho at Vengeance. Then, Rock won the title at the next Vengeance 7 months later and dropped it a month later to Brock.
The Rock held the title for about a month most of the time and he went away constantly. He was also hugely over with the entire crowd, so people wanted to see The Rock and wanted him to have a longer title reign than he got.
Contrast with John Cena. Cena held the title for an eternity despite not being over (getting go-away heat from half of the fans means you aren’t over) and was always the focus of the company whether he had the title or not. A Cena mark like yourself doesn’t get it for some reason, but most fans over the age of 12 can’t stand Cena.
Cena wasn’t over? Yes he was. Just not with adults. I’m hardly a Cena mark by the way. I’m pretty neutral on the guy.
I think the hatred stems more from the lack of competition. At least today. Back in say ’05-’06 it was a pissfest from whinning fans. I loved John Cena from that particular time period. But nowadays it’s a mix of a simple routine and lack of competition. His biggest rivals have left or have fizzled out and there’s just not much out there that can challenge him making most of his work pretty unappealing to those that want to various sides of him.
With Rocky, he always had ‘Taker, Austin, Foley and Triple H to fall back on and then Kurt showed up too. I think the issue surrounding said “fan hypocrisy” is that there was a larger pool of stars back then so there was always someone else to look at. With Cena, he’s the star and the spotlight is on him 90%. And no, I don’t think the fact that it was the Attitude Era matters. The amount of major stars is what mattered.
Completely agree with Killjoy.. well said..
Over the last 7 years there has been a shit ton of time where he didn’t have the title, he doesn’t even feud for the title that much anymore so I have no idea why people would complain about Cena having the title so much.
I’ll chant Rocky! Rocky! Rocky! but that’s because The Rock is better, has nothing to do with how many titles he has won.
You have to factor the difference between Rock’s and Cena reigns though. Sure Rock had more reigns within 4 years but what was Rock’s title reign record? 4 months? And the other 87%-ish of Rock’s reigns was done within a month hell wasn’t one of the reigns at 2 weeks? Cena’s record? 380 days and 2nd? 280 days.
No offense but it’s a silly point to bring up KB. Rock got the more reigns while Cena got longer reigns so everybody wins and no one needs to argue about this.
So you’re agreeing with the idea that Rock had his title hot shotted around a lot more, therefore devaluing it as per the definition of most modern fans. Thank you for proving my point.
Rock was in a time were many talents deserved to have Rock drop the strap like Austin,Foley,Angle,Jericho, HHH and Lesnar. A.E era hot shot booking didn’t help too.
I am agreeing with you btw but I just think the point isn’t needed just because of some dumbass IWC members. I just hope the last part in your reply wasn’t sarcastic.
I feel like the majority of those complaining about Cena weren’t old enough to complain about Rock at the time. My guess would be they started watching during the Attitude Era and remember the highs while disregarding the lows.