John Cena’s former rival believes fans were into everything he was doing in the ring.
The sixteen-time World Champion John Cena just celebrated 20 years with WWE. His championship legacy speaks for itself, and the reactions he received whenever he entered an arena are unlike any who came before him. As the WWE used to say constantly, no one gets a polarizing response like Cena. While Cena received much praise, he also received nuclear heat from the crowd. Well, one former rival of his has an interesting take on why some fans started to boo the Doctor of Thuganomics.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, John Bradshaw Layfield suggested that fans were divided over Cena because of his appearance and performance in the ring. The former WWE Champion also said that Cena was a different type of wrestler that fans were used to.
“I think it was because he was just too good. He’s this good-looking guy, he’s got this great body, he puts out great matches, and he has incredible promos … Cena would go out there and he had the entire crowd chanting either ‘Let’s Go Cena’, or ‘Cena sucks’. By the time he’s five minutes into that promo, everybody is into whatever he’s saying … I think people just disliked him, for one, they couldn’t control it, and two, it was a great departure from the beer-drinking, middle finger, and the cussing from The Rock and Stone Cold in the Attitude Era.”
Cena often was booed against fan favorites such as The Rock, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and many more. As Cena started to wrestle less often, fans began to stop being so divided over him and were more inclined to boo him out of fun. Cena recently suggested that he may wrestle more than one more match in the future. Fans watching at home will have to wait and see what response he’ll get when he returns to in-ring action.
H/t- Wrestling Inc.