John Cena Was Always The Heel

On Saturday, March 1st, 2025, at the WWE Elimination Chamber premium live event from Toronto, 16x WWE World Champion and once franchise player John Cena did the unthinkable when he aligned himself with DWAYNE and beat the crap out of undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, finally turning heel for the first time since 2003. Wrestling audiences and the WWE Universe were in awe, citing this as the greatest turn in recent memory.

My reaction to the turn? Took them long enough.

You folks need to understand something here. What John Cena did wasn’t going against his principles. He was simply doing what was best for the company that made him a household name. John Cena was all about doing what was best for the brand. If that meant toning down his act to be more acceptable to the kiddies, if that meant being the goofy do-gooder in the same vein as Hulk Hogan (minus the bullshit), if that meant siding with the company over things that fans took issue with, then that’s what he was going to do. People claimed that John Cena sold out, but really, they’re just seeing him for what he truly is.

See, in my eyes, John Cena was always the heel. Whenever he would be in a program against somewhat who deserved a run with the WWE title, I’d be rooting for the other guy. One only need to read my wrestling musings from the late-2000s to early-2010s when I would refer to Cena with juvenile names such as “John Worthless” or “John Useless” or some other stuff like that. Every time there was an up-and-coming talent that was catching fire and John Cena was somehow involved, that was usually the kiss of death for that up-and-comer. See, it wasn’t about Cena giving the new guy the rub, but rather it was about Cena taking the spotlight from the new guy; the idea being that “hey, if I pair up with this guy, people will stop booing me.”

They try this every single time and it not only almost fails every time, but the guy that they paired Cena up with that was popular with the fans… well, he’d be off to jobber territory, seen as collateral damage in the effort to make Cena look really, really strong. And so the end result becomes not only is Cena no more loved than before, but eventually, they figure out how to chant JOHN CENA SUCKS in line with his theme song. How bad was Cena getting it in the ass from the crowd? When Rock came along and Cena decided to be the defender of WWE honor because he’s a full-timer versus the part-timer Rock who says he cares but really doesn’t… people were rooting for the part-timer. It got to a point where anytime they try to do this part-timer vs. full-timer thing these days, nine times out of ten, they’ll cheer for the more popular part-timer because the full-timer comes across as a whiny geek.

And so one day, John Cena’s time in the ring is limited. He spends more time in Hollywood, he gets meme’d, he comes back for sporadic appearances to put over younger talent, including Austin Theory… with whom they’d proceed to do fuck all with afterwards. And when John Cena decided to go for one last farewell tour… well, this year’s he’s gonna win the Rumble… that didn’t pan out… so fuck it, he inserted himself into the Elimination Chamber and he won the match… and then he turned on Cody… and then he cut his promo a couple weeks later about being in an abusive relationship with the fans, who were just awful, awful idiot losers that kept booing him no matter what stunts he did to get their approval.

Nothing he said in that promo was untrue… but he’s just admitting what most of us already know. But then comes the unspoken part… people boo him being in the spot he’s in because they’d rather see other people be in that spot. In a sense, John Cena’s journey was similar to that of Roman Reigns when he first broke away from the Shield and WWE would attempt every trick under the sun to get people to like the guy because THIS TIME FOR SURE… and it never happened. In fact, what did happen was that Roman took time off for leukemia, came back, took time off because of COVID, and drastically reinvented his whole schtick to become the Tribal Chief he is today. So yes, he started off as a babyface hero nobody wanted, became one of the biggest heels that people started to like, and now he’s one of the top fan favorites in the company. Took him long enough to get there, but he got there.

This John Cena heel turn… if you want to call it that… isn’t going to mean anything in the long term. It’s not a paradigm shifting event like Hogan being the third man. It’s more along the lines of Andre The Giant, who was a fan favorite for years and often neglected by all who mattered, taking matters into his own hands by joining with evil forces to confront the fans’ new beloved babyface. It adds intrigue to the WWE Championship picture at Wrestlemania 41, but that’s about all it’s going to do.

And you know what? I’m fine with that.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t too keen on the whole Cody/Cena thing and even with this latest wrinkle, I’m still a bit on the cautious side of things. Still, you’ve got a bit of spice in a feud that desperately needed it. And if nothing else, fuels potential speculation for what happens next.

Val Kilmer

Val Kilmer – best known for his roles in Top Gun, Tombstone, Batman Forever, Heat, The Saint, and more – had passed away from pneumonia this past Tuesday. That he passed away on April 1st gave me pause and had me wondering if this was a cruel April Fool’s joke, but that proved to not be the case. Kilmer had been struggling with some ailments – notably throat cancer – so while he shall be missed, his suffering has come to an end.

Thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.

Godspeed, Val.

AEW Revolution 2025

And then there was the AEW Revolution show… which I was able to watch while at a friend’s house taking care of some stuff… yes, it’s another four hour show with the usual great wrestling and some spectacles of sort, but this is also comes across as a late-90s WCW PPV, where the undercard matches are great, but the main event is shit.

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I Watched Leonard Part 6 Instead Of Section 31

Last week, I posted on this blog that I had an epiphany of sorts when someone asked me about that Section 31 film. The epiphany was that I would much rather watch Leonard Part 6 – the much reviled box office bomb starring disgraced comedian Bill Cosby – than the Section 31 film. I had then teased that I would have something special for today… I didn’t say what, but smart readers who read that post and then read yesterday’s semi-monthly proclamation that I did not watch Alex Kurtzman’s Section 31 film starring Academy Award Winner Michelle Yeoh should have been able to put two and two together.

And when you did, you probably thought, “Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. You don’t want to watch the newest Star Trek thing on Paramount Plus because it looks like shit, BUT you have no problem spending money on a shitty comedy movie from the eighties starring one of the shittiest men in the world. HAR! HAR! GOOD ONE, PAL!”

You fuckers thought that I was joking. Hell, you figured that after a whole afternoon of radio silence, there was nothing to this whole deal and my little tease was an early April Fool’s joke.

Well…

Turns out the joke was on me…

Continue reading “I Watched Leonard Part 6 Instead Of Section 31”

On The 31st Day… A Reminder That I Did Not Watch Section 31

It is March 31st of the year 2025 and I am here to tell you that I have still not watched the critically-divisive Section 31 movie starring Academy Award Winner Michelle Yeoh.

The idea occurred to me to make this a regular tradition. For every month that passes, I make a post on the 31st day of the month (should it apply) that I have not watched this film.

I do this not out of pride.

I do this not out of integrity.

I do this because it amuses me greatly.

Tomorrow, I have something special for you folks.

Nice To Meet You, Rose. Run For Your Life!

Hard to imagine that it’s been twenty years since Doctor Who made a return to television. A far different take on what had come before, but still very much part of that long-lasting lore. I adored Christopher Eccleston’s take on the Doctor, I thought Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler was a perfect companion for this new, brooding Doctor fellow. I liked that stories were resolved in one or two episodes rather than four or five like in the old show. I liked that the video quality was actually consistent as opposed to the old show where the outside scenes looked grainer than the inside scenes.

This was my entry point into this now six-decade plus old franchise that had, up to that point, largely eluded me. I knew of Doctor Who, I heard of it, but my exposure to the franchise had been fairly minimal. Even now, I’m still playing catch up with the older stuff while ignoring the newer stuff due to its current choice of streaming home. Whatever happens, here’s to another six decades of zany Doctors and stuff.

New Power Rangers Series On Disney+

Source: https://www.thewrap.com/live-action-power-rangers-hasbro-disney/

Described as a re-invention of the franchise and headed by two guys whose names I can’t be bothered to recall… hence the link to the original source article so that you can read it for yourself.

No solid details at this point, but I’m pretty sure anyone clamoring for a continuation of the old show are going to be disappointed. This looks like it’s headed in a new direction and I’m… eh. How about we let it play out and see where it goes?