WWE Commits Booking Malpractice With Cena & Rollins

If we ever needed confirmation of Vince McMahon’s self-destructive obsession with John Cena, we got it on Saturday night. Heading into the WWE house show at Madison Square Garden airing on the WWE Network we all knew, soon as we saw the match listed, that Cena would successfully defend his U.S. Championship against Seth Rollins. Few things have ever been a surer bet. Cena was 51-0 against Rollins at house shows going into that match.

However, Saturday night should have been different. Word came down last week that Cena is going to be taking off at least a couple of months for personal reasons. Don’t know what those reasons are. Maybe he’s a little burned out. He certainly has every right to be given his work schedule over the past 13 years. Regardless, John Cena will be walking away from the WWE for an indeterminate spell. It should have changed the company’s “Cena Wins LOL” booking.

Not for nothing, Seth Rollins is the WWE champion and he’s going to be around in another month. Also, unlike the previous 51 house show matches between these two, this one was being aired. It was being inserted into the WWE’s continuing on-air storyline. Common sense dictates the booking should have protected the company’s current standard bearer, not the guy headed out the door. Instead Cena pinned Rollins inside a steel cage after some minor involvement from Kane. It was stupid, lazy, brand-damaging booking.

I’m sure what we saw was the original plan. Rollins beat Cena at SummerSlam and the standard rules of feuding with John Cena dictate Rollins must now be squashed like a bug in recompense for Cena giving away that one match. How much of that is Vince McMahon’s tone deaf booking and how much of it is Cena’s gigantic ego, we don’t know. All we know is Cena doesn’t just win feuds, he obliterates opponents, making it clear they are far lesser men. It has poisoned the WWE. We get one main story: Cena above all. The message has been sent, emphatically, that no one who has come through the door after Cena gets to measure up to Cena.

Rollins, who has proven to everyone with a working pair of eyes that he has superior ring talents, was strapped on the altar, ready for sacrifice. However, he should have been rescued like Fay Wray from the clutches of King Kong. The ritualistic bloodletting should have been cancelled. What could they have done? Well, they probably don’t want Rollins strutting around with two belts again. I wouldn’t complain if he did, but I understand why it’s important to pass around the sugar. So the simplest way to book it would have been to change it from a U.S. title match to a steel cage that supposedly settles the feud … and then you let Rollins win. Make it clear the fed is turning the page from Cena to its newer talents. Just because Cena may be off the table doesn’t mean fans are left to feast on leftovers. Crazy, right?

And if Kane had to be involved, it would have been an ideal moment for Rollins to foil the Devil’s favorite demon. Rollins could have hit a splash off the cage onto Kane, using his momentum to topple over the monster and touch ground. Then Kane could have thrown a fit during Rollins’ victory celebrations, putting him through the announce table and perhaps scaring off Sheamus, who should have been looking to cash in his MITB briefcase. Yet it was a perfect moment to let Rollins remind us why he’s champ, putting his body on the line an out-thinking his adversaries. Cena’s pending sabbatical demanded a different outcome.

On top of that, it would have been a better creative decision for Cena’s character to have him lose. The shock of actually losing a feud combined with him dropping the U.S. title later in October would give him something to prove when he comes back for the annual WrestleMania push in early 2016, which is what his timetable seems to be. While it may be a very Cena thing to do, walking away without a care in the world makes his eventual return a bit of a yawn. Ideally it should feel like WWE wrestlers have knocked Cena off his pedestal and are fighting to lead the promotion forward. We should be talking about a post-Cena universe. Then Cena can come back and try to reclaim his spot as Mr. WWE. It gives him a mountain to climb.

Normally I subscribe to the notion that you can make good creative choices regardless of the result of a given match. Rarely do you run into a situation where someone must win. Cena-Rollins this Saturday was an exception. The failure to adapt the booking to the larger situation leaves Rollins wounded and Cena boring. If anything it planted the seed that fans can ignore the two-plus months while Cena is gone, because he’s the only guy that matters.