Pro wrestling is ruined forever, or at least that is what John Cena threatened to do by winning the Undisputed WWE Championship from Cody Rhodes in the main event of WWE WrestleMania 41, which is what he just did.
Not only is that an amazing accomplishment in its own right, but it is also Cena's historic 17th world title reign, meaning he has broken into the record books to overtake a spot long associated with Ric Flair.
As it was his last WrestleMania, it is as good a way to cap that off than can be, and it's only the beginning of this heel run.
How did this go down tonight, what led to this, and what could be on the horizon? Let's break it all down!
How We Got Here:
For the most part, this story is relatively fresh. Technically, Cena and Rhodes have a history from The American Nightmare looking up to Cena as a role model and trying to pattern part of his career off his lessons. Of course, it also needs to be said that Cena's backstory for his current character is being booed as the top babyface for a long portion of his run as The Franchise Player of WWE, and his eventual breaking point.
Suffice it to say, as hort version of this would be that Cena won the right to challenge Rhodes by winning the Elimination Chamber. He promptly became a villain, and has since had arguments with Rhodes over the integrity of their characters, the WWE Championship, and the fans.
Match Details:
As expected in this kind of scenario, there was a point in the bout where Rhodes had Cena down for a count, but the referee had been taken out of the equation. There's always some room for doubt about a title win at that point, and it could very well be used as the reasoning for a rematch in the future. That's especially true since Cena blatantly cheated by ramming Rhodes into an exposed turnbuckle, as well (even though that didn't get the three-count at the moment).
The fans in attendance were cheering quite a bit for Cena over Rhodes. Whether that's just because they're the types who want to cheer against the top babyface by default to be contrarian, or that they're just going to be cheering Cena as a heel going forward is unknown, but we'll see soon enough based on the reaction he gets on Monday Night Raw and beyond.
Travis Scott came out, very slowly sauntering down to the ring and was planning to slap Rhodes again like he did at Elimination Chamber, but Rhodes managed to get another Cross Rhodes in. Scott pulled the referee out of the ring to prevent that pinfall. He tried again to strike Rhodes, who caught him and gave him a Cross Rhodes for a measure of revenge.
This opened an opportunity for Cena to try to hit Rhodes with the title belt. Rhodes wrestled it away from him, but chose not to use it, so Cena kicked him below the belt and followed the low-blow with nailing Rhodes in the head with the belt for the win.
Personal Reactions & What Happens Next?:
You can't get much better than Cody's story of winning the title in the fashion he did, holding it for a full year from WrestleMania to WrestleMania, and dropping it to a heel John Cena for the 17th world title reign. Major kudos to him and WWE for that run.
Cena holding this title is extremely interesting. Not only have we not seen Cena as a heel on top of the division, but he's more than deserving of overtaking Ric Flair's record.
Not having The Rock involved whatsoever is a mistake. How that guy keeps dropping the ball so often and just acting like it's perfectly okay is incredibly frustrating. He should've been the one getting involved more than Travis Scott. But I'm sure he's going to try to act like it's all part of some plan and that the fans don't know where the story is going and shouldn't be critical and whatnot. At least for now, that was a disappointment, along with a lot of other underwhelming things from this year's WrestleMania overall like the entrances and the energy from the first night, but the main thing people will be thinking about when they think of this year's event is the end result, and Cena is more than deserving of walking out of this as champion making his mark.
Tell us what you think about John Cena's title win by leaving a comment below! Do you think he'll drop it before or after he turns babyface again? Who will win it next? Where does Cody go from here? Keep the discussion going!