John Cena has been at the top of the food chain in the WWE for over a decade now. The general opinion is that he is going to be their top guy until he retires, no matter if he is just a part-timer or doing a full-time work for Vince McMahon. But, he is not loved by every single fan as half of the arena always chants in his favor, while the other half hate his guts.
We are not going to get into why is that as that is a different story for another time. We are going to talk about the fact that there were times when he was just cheered. Why is that? For starters, he was a great talker as a heel when he was doing all those rhymes while being a doctor of thuganomics.
That elevated him big time, and the fans wanted to see him succeed. When the company turned him face, the fans were backing Cena up as they wanted to see this guy doing great things. His mic work remained same, the role got a few tweaks, just enough so the character is refreshing. He did get pushed hard, but the fans were on board with it. He was always funny, didn’t get stale quickly, in the beginning, the people really didn’t mind another superhero-like character as he was different from the guys like Stone Cold and Hulk Hogan.
He had that silliness about him that people loved. The sad thing is the fact that WWE never wanted to change his character as they were moving his merch really well. The kids always loved him, and Vince never wanted to risk a thing with John Cena’s gimmick. That is why eventually people turned on him. But, at first, he saw a meteoric rise to the top.