Examining John Cena's response to burial claims
Tempers flared on the August 28th edition of Monday Night Raw as John Cena and Roman Reigns signed contracts for their “WrestleMania-caliber match” at No Mercy. Social media was abuzz following the verbal assault Cena hit Reigns with, and many cited this as one of the most embarrassing moments in his career.
Though Reigns, a man known for his shortcomings on the microphone, managed to get some good insults in, it didn’t match up to the onslaught from Cena. However, in the midst of their war of words, the misconception of Cena and his history of burials came up, and Cena fired back with his usual response on the issue.
“Burying” is defined by PWTorch as lowering someone in the eyes of the fans or their peers, and many say this has been done by Cena through many of his promos and matches. This problem with Cena defeating wrestlers at their peak was originally just a fan opinion, but has since become the basis of many promos from wrestlers who attempt to one-up Cena during their verbal exchanges.
Both Cena and his opponents bring up interesting points, but leaves a question unanswered: which side is right? To get a better understanding, this article will look at Cena’s history of dominance, the burial comments, and the breakdown of Cena’s response.
#1 The history of “Cena Wins LOL”
Cena debuted on the main roster in 2002 and spent the next three years paying his dues and working his way up the rungs of the WWE. It was abundantly clear that he was being marketed as the top guy from 2005-2007 and his status as “The Face That Runs the Place” has only strengthened over the years.
However, another notion that got stronger with the passage of time was the idea that Cena’s dominance occasionally came at the expense of wrestlers on the cusp of superstardom.
Many wrestlers got themselves over prior to their programs with Cena and would work their way up the card. Unfortunately, facing Cena led to their downfall. Any momentum that these wrestlers had before they faced Cena often would be sacrificed for WWE's desire to keep the top guy as strong as possible.
The concept of keeping top guys strong makes sense, but fans feel that shouldn't be maintained at the expense of stars on the rise.
Based on what many fans have argued over the years, Cena tends to bury his opponents in two specific ways.
The first type of burial is the outright defeat where Cena dominates his opponents in promo exchanges, matches and sometimes both. Damien Sandow, Umaga and Ryback all fell to Cena in all of their encounters and were never looked twice at for main event level matches. Baron Corbin is the most recent victim, but the jury is still out on whether he will be considered for main event matches in the future.
The second type of burial, and the most common, is the overall feud supremacy in which Cena may lose one match in a highly controversial fashion, but he’s subsequently booked to win the next two or three encounters. Rusev, Dolph Ziggler and The Miz all managed to beat Cena in a big match, but those wins were marred in controversy due to interference, sneak attacks and distracted referees.
After their one controversial win, Cena went on to overcome the odds and dominate the rest of the feud with decisive wins. And after losing to Cena, regardless of which type of burial occurs, these wrestlers would also fall into lower profile programs on a more consistent basis and the company would rarely give them big opportunities again.
The only exceptions to this rule have been Bray Wyatt and Dolph Ziggler who went on to hold world championships, but those title wins were short-lived and both men immediately fell from grace once those title reigns were over.
Being doomed to the mid-card for the remainder of their career is a symptom of being buried by Cena. The only thing that made some of these burials worse in the eyes of fans was the part Cena allegedly played backstage. There have been several rumours that Cena has used backstage politics to get matches booked in his favour and although many of them haven’t been proven, the one clear cut case of Cena making a change that greatly affected the careers of his opponents was his infamous situation with The Nexus.
This is one of the few stories to have multiple testimonies from the people involved and could make even the biggest Cena fans question themselves. After all, if it happened once, it’s logical to assume that it could happen again.