Alright that’s all folks. John Cena is retired.

What’d we think of his last year in the company?

I have very mixed reviews. Like the actual heel turn itself was amazing but the run wasn’t executed the best. Travis Scott being a part of Cena winning at Mania felt so wrong. You could tell Rock was supposed to be a part of it but backed out but of course that’s on Rock.

On top of that 1 year isn’t enough time to turn the biggest star heel and since he was retiring we knew how the storyline would end. I think his turning back to babyface on a random episode of Smackdown was weird as fuck and abrupt. Like yeah you beat me up so I realized I’ve been a dick. Sorry bout that. lol.

Also the Brock lesnar storyline and match was just horrible and unnecessary. It made no sense for him to just randomly job to lesnar in the middle of his retirement tour with no way of revenge.

I didn’t really like the Randy Orton feud either. It was always gonna feel weird with a heel Cena and babyface Orton but I felt like they didn’t do enough to make it work. Basic ass buildup with fuckery finish.

Lastly, I needed Cena to make more appearances. 200 wasn’t realistic but he should’ve at least appeared on every Raw, SD, and PLE. The last few months in particular were ridiculous with literally one appearance in October, three in November, and one in December.

The positives of the tour were that he did cut some fun promos as a heel, the Cody Rhodes II match, Logan Paul match, AJ Styles match, and Gunther match were all fantastic. It was nice seeing him win the IC Title too at the very end.

Overall I do think the tour was kind of a missed opportunity. It had some great matches and of course it was cool seeing him heel finally but there was way too much inconsistency and randomness to say it was a huge success.

Chris said:

I think objectionably it was a success from a business standpoint regardless of what I think of it. The consensus is pretty split about if it was actually good but only time will tell if that makes a difference or not in how people feel about the company, the road to WrestleMania heals a lot of wounds for most people.

And I actually think in hindsight it will end up being remembered as pretty good anyway bc outside the Cody Mania match and the Brock match, every other match was pretty much who he should have worked with for a last year, and most are rated pretty high in a vacuum.

Heel turn was pointless. The moment itself was great and for that night it was an all timer but by about week 3 it was entirely too clear that the plans weren't going to be good. They should have went with the timeline I laid out where he won the KOTR for the first time that summer instead of trying to work around Travis Scott's whims

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I don’t think him winning KOTR would’ve helped anything or anyone

Chris said:

I think the plan i laid out that you said was stupid for some reason a lot of times where he realized his mistake earlier and then won KOTR to face Gunther at SummerSlam would have been way better than him saying "lol I'm a good guy again" a week before SummerSlam.

They basically did the same idea with the IC title, I didn't have him winning that one for the first time in my timeline, I went with KOTR still bc I wanted him to get #17 as a Babyface at SummerSlam instead of at a heel at Mania

And with hindsight I still think him winning as a heel at Mania thanks to Travis Scott was definitely stupider than if he lost at Mania you don't disagree either you'll just keep saying "but he doesn't need KOTR" as if that wasn't just a vehicle that made my timeline work

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No I think I didn’t like it because why would he turn heel just to turn babyface two months later and win KOTR. that is actually what happened and it sucked

Chris said:

Well no, he turned Babyface 4 months later for no reason instead of 2 months later with a reason, when the crowd already wanted to cheer for him again anyway. I think Cena winning the record breaking title win as a face would have been much better than winning it as a heel and a week before he loses it says he's a face again. My way the Babyface wins and shows everyone being a good guy is right, the way they did it shows that you should sell out and you shouldn't change your mind bc if you do you'll lose your title instantly.

If you want a good 1 year retirement run but also squeeze in a heel turn on there, you're going to have to sacrifice how long that can last. They prolonged him being heel way too long after the turn. You guys were all saying he was gonna be a heel the rest of the year and turn for his last match or something like what lol he should have been Babyface again by June

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Well I still think he either should’ve been heel until the end of the year or not turn at all. Anything else is half assing it.