There may still be some confusion surrounding The John Cena Classic, announced by the future WWE Hall of Famer at Backlash this past weekend. That’s because it’s a bit of a confusing concept, one even industry veterans are struggling to understand. Based on their understanding of it, however, they have some issues with it.
The long and short of it: established stars vs. rising stars, a new title, fans determine the winner via polling, and they can choose whomever they want, including wrestlers who have
lost.
It’s all very new age, WWE Unreal on Netflix, who-gives-a-shit-about-kayfabe-anymore. Lance Storm immediately had some criticism of it on Wrestling Observer Live:
“If I’m a $500,000 main roster talent and I’m in there with a $75,000 a year NXT guy, why would I use my skill and my experience to make him look good? If he wins the popularity contest and wins and gets the push to the championship, I could lose my job. Because there is going top be a TKO executive saying, ‘well why are we paying this guy that lost the fan vote and is less over than this NXT guy that works for way less money?’”
Hard to argue with that logic.
Jeff Jarrett chimed in with his own issues with it on his My World podcast (transcription via F4Wonline.com):
“I get it from a business perspective. It’s the funnel to get people engaged and there’s going to be an X poll, there’s going to be a TikTok poll, they’re going to be on every social media platform. There’s going to be all kinds of social custom content and, I don’t know if they announced the sponsor for this, but that’s probably going to be one of John’s VO accounts that he has.
“But from the storytelling component of this, you can become champion and you don’t have to win your matches…we may be all kind of overthinking this, and it is what it is, because the whole world knows we’re scripted entertainment, but we at least want to get lost in the story, someone trying to WIN the title. It takes that component out, the suspension of disbelief, what matters in our world, as we’re watching this two hour or three hour episode or three hour premium live event. [If we don’t need to] get immersed in the story, why do we care when a hip toss happens or a false finish happens or there’s a spectacular move off the top rope?”
John Cena defended it here but I would love to hear any arguments to the contrary here, if you have them.
