by Rick Nash
“Your time is up, my time is now,” bellows the theme song of John Cena. Yet, as his ever-increasing list of injuries pile up, one has to wonder is the WWE Champion’s time atop of pro-wrestling’s mountain coming to an end?
His WrestleMania main event win over The Rock was, in theory, supposed to be a passing of the torch moment. Yet watching the match, history didn’t echo throughout the arena as perhaps WWE bosses had hoped. It was kinda sad actually. We later learned that The Rock had suffered a hernia injury during the bout. Cena, on the other hand, just seemed tired.
The following night on WWE Raw, he joked with a raucous crowd about the possibility of a ‘heel turn’ (responding to older fans’ wishes to see him embrace his dark side), twisting his heel for full effect. Little did any of us realise that, within a matter of weeks, that same heel would prove to be his undoing.
Whilst on a European Tour, hyping a new WWE Championship feud with emerging prospect Ryback, Cena injured his Achilles tendon throwing said feud – and his 11th Heavyweight Title reign – into jeopardy ahead of their scheduled bout at WWE Extreme Rules (this Sunday, Sky Box Office).
They say that the body knows when an athlete is done before the mind. A quick look at Cena’s injury history may unearth a disturbing trend.
Since making his WWE televised debut in 2002, Cena managed to escape the first five years of his career relatively unscathed. However a torn pectoral muscle in October 2007 saw him diagnosed for up to a year’s absence. Setting a trend, he would return within only three months to win the 2008 Royal Rumble match.
That run would only last seven months, though, as Cena would suffer a herniated disc in his neck following a match with Batista at that year’s SummerSlam. Again he returned sooner than anticipated, defeating Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Championship three months later at Survivor Series.
By now, WWE were learning that a star they had spent years building up was growing more fragile, despite his super-human recovery time. To give some perspective, the only other recent, top-level stars who had worked the kind of hectic in- and out-of-ring schedule that Cena was battling were Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. They both wrestled full-time with WWE for approximately six years.
The storylines he engaged in were downscaled in the ring to accommodate the fact that there was, simply, nobody else who could carry the company without risking a serious drop in TV ratings and pay-per-view buyrates.
That plan appeared to work, in the short-term. WWE even grew more ambitious in their planning of John Cena’s schedule, and announced his first WrestleMania bout against The Rock (which took place last year in Miami) a year in advance. With diligent planning of Cena’s schedule, taking into account that any hiccups along the way could risk that huge main event, the plan was successful and the match took place without incident. Cena lost, setting up last month’s rematch.
The second year of planning didn’t run as smoothly, though. In September, WWE were forced to postpone a planned blow-off to the feud between Cena and his rival – then-WWE Champion, CM Punk – when Cena required surgery to remove bone chips in his arm.
This time, he would raise the bar for ‘toughing it out’ while hurt: not only returning earlier than anticipated, but refusing to miss TV tapings while recovering and participating in a non-wrestling role.
That, and the WrestleMania rematch with The Rock that followed, leads us right up to the heel turn that fans hadn’t been crying for.
Once again, John was on top of the WWE mountain. He now held the WWE Championship for the first time in over 18 months. CM Punk, the person who had carried the company while Cena was hurt, has taken a hiatus to recover from his own ailments. Ryback (a newcomer on the WWE main event scene) had been handpicked as Cena’s next challenger. But now John was hurt again.
It’s not only father time that appears to be kicking Cena’s proverbial. If a Family Fortunes contestant was shown a picture of John Cena for the first time and asked to guess his occupation, bodybuilder would likely show up as one of the top answers. That’s because the bodybuilder look is one that wrestling promoters, particularly WWE’s legendary CEO Vince McMahon, have historically craved in their top guys.
What we’re learning though, as training for elite athletes evolves in the 21st century, is that perhaps bodybuilding and wrestling may not fit as well as first thought. The world of Mixed Martial Arts shares a lot in common with that of professional wrestling, in terms of physicality. On a recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Podcast, UFC Welterweight Champion, Georges St Pierre, spoke of how he learned that the likes of yoga suited him better for training and conditioning than bodybuilding.
It would seem that he is not alone in sharing this line of thought. In a recent training video released ahead of his own WrestleMania 29 match, bodybuilding enthusiast Triple H was seen practicing more resistance and body weight-based exercises; far removed from those described in his book ‘Making The Game’, giving training advice to aspiring wrestlers.
Despite this Cena, in typical Cena fashion, has insisted on toughing it out and wrestling this Sunday (having already done so on several TV appearances since the injury) against Ryback.
John Cena is known for being ‘old school’. He is, to many, the second coming of 80’s star Hulk Hogan. His style isn’t particularly pretty or evolved either. And he has that old school ‘tough it out’ mentality when it comes to being hurt. That same attitude is now being condemned in the likes of the NFL in light of revelations about the long-term damage of concussions (which ironically came to light thanks to John’s former WWE colleague, Harvard graduate Chris Nowinski).
You have to wonder when this attitude stops being ‘old school’ and just becomes ‘dated’. And whether he’ll realise all of this himself, or if his body will be forced to make the decision for him?
Rick’s Quick Picks for WWE Extreme Rules
Last Man Standing Match for WWE Championship: Ryback over John Cena (c)
Steel Cage Match: Brock Lesnar over Triple H
I Quit Match: Alberto Del Rio over Jack Swagger
US Championship Match: Dean Ambrose over Kofi Kingston (c)
WWE Tag-Team Championship Match: The Shield over Team Hell No
Strap Match: Sheamus over Mark Henry
Extreme Rules Match: Big Show over Randy Orton
Chris Jericho over Fandango
Pre-Show: Cody Rhodes over The Miz
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