FANTASY BOOKING - Heel Cena

I like wrestling a lot.  There are moments and things I like more than others.  But when it comes down to it, I don't just like wrestling, I like the theory of wrestling.  What makes something work, what made something not, how to improve it, how to distill something down to its best.  As a writer and a wrestling fan who loves theory, this shows itself very well in fantasy booking.

"Booking" is the term for the basic setups of storylines and who wins and who loses what.  And I want to book a scenario for fun.  I'll do this every now and again, feel free to tell me I'm lame or wrong or right or whatever.

Heel Cena

The problem with Cena turning heel is that you have to make sure he doesn't just get cheered by all the people who want him to go heel.  Smart fans like me keep Cena face, which makes us angrier, and it doesn't matter.  So for this scenario to even begin to work, we need to find a way to make Cena heel to everyone.  Everyone has to hate him.

This job is way easier than I first thought.  Because half the fans (that's a generously low number I feel) already hate him.  The complaints against Cena are simple to understand:
 * He always acts like a dope with stupid jokey promos or EXTRA SERIOUS TIME promos
 * He never sells realistically
 * His matches don't get anyone over but himself
 * Every match he is treated like the underdog, even though he's one of the winningest "on top" guys ever, and has been on top forever.

Those things need to not change.  What needs to change is adding more things to make people hate him, and to make the fans that cheer start hating him too.  And that's where it clicked for me.  Come with me on this fantasy journey.

Let's say Cena holds the title for awhile then eventually gets in a predicament right around Summerslam where it is face v. face.  There are a handful of guys you can do that with for some real drama, and he performs as a heel in face v. face matches almost consistently  harking back to him v. Punk and both him v. Rock matches.  Daniel Bryan could work, though I suspect he'll be turning heel soon.  Sheamus is potential as well.  Punk again is possible.  But I think Undertaker would be a great choice.

So let's say Taker and Cena go mano-a-mano at Summerslam.  And the build to the whole thing is about crowd support, about the respect that Taker gets, and how Cena is about Hustle and Loyalty as well.  But things are wearing on him.  And walks in to Summerslam doubting himself.  This is a fairly standard build for Cena matches, and would put some doubt in who would win.  For our scenario, Undertaker wins.

Following that is Night of Champions.  Cena gets his rematch, but the fans are firmly on Taker's side.  The match is about Taker respecting Cena and Cena feeling bad about the whole thing.  His spirit is hurt.  Taker then says that Cena can choose any stipulation he wants for the match in a show of ultimate respect.  Cena takes a week and decides he wants it as a stipulation to clearly favors him.  Let's go with a cage match.

The match happens, and over the course of the match, Cena plays his role up, but Taker is veteran and the final spot comes where he finally almost has him beat.  AA, kick out.  Tombstone, kick out.  Give Taker a tombstone, kick out.  Cena musters up everything and finally plants Taker, then decides to climb.  As he gets to the top, he looks around, and the fans go nuts, because fan love spots from the top.  Taker gets up so Cena leaps down and does his guillotine leg drop, then pulls Taker up and gives him an AA ... but it breaks the side of the cage and throws Taker out.  Taker retains.  Cena is dumbfounded.

Cena demands another shot, and gets a "last chance" match at Over the Limits.  And there he loses super clean.  But gets up immediately after.  And is super pissed.

Next night, he delivers a promo.  He talks about how he spent years doing what the fans want.  But that's fine.  Because he knows what he company wants.  They want him as the face of the company.  They want him selling shirts and making movies like he always does.  So he's going to stay the face of the company.  He isn't allowed to challenge for the WWE title while Undertaker is champ.  But he can go after other titles.  So he will.  Cena is the WWE.

You have him debut a new shirt, Cena is the WWE, and then you have him start going for every belt.  At first, what's happening doesn't immediately catch on, and could be a while before they do.  But slowly and surely, Cena starts taking out and winning every belt.  He first goes for the US title, since that was his first title, and it is just competition at first.  Let's say Kofi has it again, because that's what they do, the put it on Kofi so he can lose it.  But he truly just destroys him on PPV like a jobber.  It goes maybe 4 minutes.  It was a crap match, but it firmly sets up heel Cena as the guy who no one beats.  He destroys a friend because he IS the company.

From there, he goes for the tag titles at Survivor Series.  If he eliminates both members, he wins.  And he totally does.

Then on to the IC at TLC in a ladder match, to give a fighting change.  But he takes it.

Then the Rumble, and he goes for the WHC and just absolutely is heel now and takes the WHC.  And is now holding everything except the WWE title.  At the Rumble, you set up someone, anyone really, who can be the next big guy, the next top guy.  Like Ryback COULD have been.  They win the Rumble, and immediately says that he is going to stop Cena.  Cena then destroys him.  Just out of nowhere, completely kills him, makes him tap out, AA through the announce table, just leaves him lying.  They set up a special Elimination Chamber where all of Cena's titles are on the line, and the current WWE title is in there too.  All titles on the line ... but Cena wins them all!  Cena now holds everything and IS the company!  So you have one heel Cena holding EVERY BELT ... but the next day as he celebrates and says he is the company, the rumble winner is back and leaves Cena lying!

They set up the match as if Cena loses, he is stripped of everything at Mania.  And it keeps getting bad.  You have the rest of the PPV set up contenders and finish other feuds that have been happening.  So it is all or nothing, Rumble winner v. Cena.  And there you crown a new WWE champ, strip Cena of everything, and now Cena is on a warpath, full heel mode.

That would be an amazing 6 months of story.  But, that's just my opinion.