Before you start jumping to conclusions, I am in no way a John Cena mark. In fact, I hated John Cena until Judgment Day, and then my hate started to waver for him. By the time this is posted, it will probably be the three year anniversary of John Cena's SmackDown! debut. As I write this, John Cena's fourth year in the WWE will begin eight days from now, the Monday Night RAW falling out of Vengeance. It would truly be fateful to see if three years after his debut, John Cena has the WWE Championship around his waist in a hopefully good match that he will retain in. Don't get me wrong, it'd be cool to see either Christian or Chris Jericho wins the title, but I am really rooting for the bookers to do the right thing and have Cena retain, and draft both Christian and Cena to SmackDown! so they can feud there. But that's a different story.

Let's take a look back at John Cena's debut match against Kurt Angle. That match immediately told me that John Cena was destined for something. While having Cena beat Angle does not back up my opinion as much as if he beat someone like Undertaker, who isn't usually willing to job to up and comers, unlike Angle, who will job to anyone. But the way they put Cena over was just unbelievable. The following weeks, Chris Jericho and Undertaker get involved with this new kid, Undertaker backing him up and Cena eventually getting into a feud with Y2J. Cena scored the win over Y2J, and was poised for a push. But he was soon put into the tag division with Billy Kidman. For a couple of weeks I thought Cena was going to be put through a jobbing phase after his success against established veterans, but instead, they do the one thing that revives so many wrestler's pushes: turn him heel. After a series of confrontations with the likes of Rikishi, Cena is pushed into the title scene, when it appeared there would be no one to challenge Lesnar. Surprisingly, it actually worked out, as it was a damn good match and proved to a lot of people that Cena was a great performer. Cena was gold. He had one of the most money-making gimmicks in the business and was starting to show he could do it in the ring.

Next up for Cena is a spot in the US title tournament. I thought this was a good thing for Cena, if he won the US title, that could only do good for him, as the US title would be doing what it was meant to be, a stepping stone, so that after the US title run, he would go after the WWE Title once again. But no, it was all to set up a feud with the Undertaker. Instead of jobbing to Cena, which at this point in Taker's career, would not have hurt him, Cena lost. A prime example of Taker's unwillingness to job. After an entertaining feud with Eddie Guerrero, Cena turned face when he joined Team Angle at Survivor Series to defeat Brock Lesnar's team, who at the time was a major heel. As Chris Benoit, who partnered with Cena and was hugely involved with him in recent weeks, got a major push by winning the Rumble, Cena lost in a three way to main event WrestleMania, and instead at WM 20 won the US title from the Big Show. This was the turning point in John Cena's career, who had managed to get so over, despite never winning a title. Even as a mid-card champion, he was one of the biggest babyfaces in the entire business. His pops were second only to Eddie Guerrero's, and sometimes he got bigger pops than Eddie. John Cena's summer of 2004 was basically spent dominating the mid-card, beating Rene Dupree, Rob Van Dam, and Booker T among others to establish himself as a dominant US Champion by eventually becoming a three time US Champ, even making his own belt. At this point, Cena's popularity was at a boiling point, and the only way to make it explode into tons and tons of publicity and revenue was to give Cena the ball. At WrestleMania 21, one year after his first title win, he ended the nine month reign of John Bradshaw Layfield to become WWE Champion, doing what Eddie Guerrero, Undertaker, Booker T, Kurt Angle, and Big Show could not do.

Fast forward to today. Cena has recently been in a huge publicity stunt involving his defect from SmackDown! to Monday Night RAW. Three years into his career, and he is the biggest draw in the business. Smarks all over the world hate him for his wavering in-ring abilities, which have since dwindled from 2003. No matter how much they try and sell Batista as the World Champion, the REAL Champion is John Cena, Cena's gimmick is gold, his mic skills are second to none, excluding maybe The Rock, can put on good matches when necessary. Cena truly has what it takes to carry this business. People say his gimmick is getting stale, but that is simply blind hate. They would all eat their words in a second if Cena turned heel. I truly beg the WWE to send Cena back to SmackDown!, as he cannot afford to lose his title, and become a sitting duck on RAW where he certain to buried by Triple H. It is unfortunate that that is the fate that will probably await Kurt Angle, and the fate that has bestruck Randy Orton and Chris Benoit, who have both been saved by being sent to SmackDown!. Unlike Orton and Benoit, who, one of them got stale as a face, and one of them had no charisma and mic skills anyway, Cena is still fresh and has TONS of charisma and will NOT be forgotten, you cannot bury him. Cena needs to be the top man on SmackDown! and get into high profile feuds. It's his destiny to become the future of the WWE, because it sure is not Batista, and for now, will not be Orton. Out of those three, John Cena, in my opinion is currently having the most successful title reign.

Word Life.

by Bruce C. ..