I am not a Cena fan; never have been; never will be. While not confirmed I do harbor a suspicion that he has more creative control on what happens with his ‘storyline’ then anyone will ever admit to; and yes he does loads of work for Make-A-Wish and America’s Troops for which gets my respect; I still don’t like him…but that’s not the point…my point is regardless of how people feel Cena is still the best choice for this scenario.
So his sidelining has been somewhat inconvenient; it pushed their time table up; The Shield could have teamed with Bryan for a few more months in the battle of the authority/evolution; but Bryan being out left a void; so they ramped up the plan; the Shield split; and as we saw these last few weeks; Reigns, Ambrose and Rollins are running full tilt boogie with their paths; Rollins is great as the turn coat; Ambrose is running hog wild with the Lunatic Fringe deal and we can all see Reigns being groomed to be the Heir Apparent; it’s why he was in the WWE WHC ladder match; while the other two were in the contract match.
Reigns mixed it up with the veterans who can go all day and put on a hell of a performance; as did Bray Wyatt. But Reigns (and Wyatt…or Cesaro) would have been a poor choice to win the title at this stage of the game. It has to do with a slight problem…the leak of the poster for Summer Slam where Cena faces off against Lesnar. This too was a game changer for the WWE brass; as I have heard tell in some interviews with wrestlers that plans can be changed at a moment’s notice.
Battleground happens in 3 weeks; Summer Slam happens 4 weeks after that; which means if Reigns had gotten the title (or Wyatt…or Cesaro…even if Bryan retained) they would have had to drop the title to Cena at Battleground so he’d have it at Summer Slam when he squares off against Lesnar; because Lesnar isn’t going to come out and just wrestle Cena for shits and giggles; there has to be something on the line and that something is the WWE WHC; having a match to be the #1 contender would be garbage.
So Reigns (or Wyatt…even Cesaro) would have had a short reign…and the IWC would be howling that Cena buried them again. Having Cena win in a free for all that is a ladder match that was not only populated with new comers but with veterans makes his win seem less of a burial.
While this is Cena’s 15th title reign; it remains to be seen if he carries it past SummerSlam.
[amazon_link id=”B00JHH1YAW” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]WWE The Paul Heyman Story[/amazon_link]
WWE: United We Slam – Best of Great American Bash
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