The Teacher plays a game. "Heel or Not Heel?"

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Gather ‘round, children.  I want to tell you a story.

You see, back in my day, which was called “the early 90’s” by us crazy chilluns, things were different.  I’m not saying they were better. . . I’m just saying they were different.  It was a time before you had all these new-fangled “smart phones”, back when a “tweet” was only a sound that a bird made, you see?   

This was a time where you could buy a gallon of gas for less than two dollars and could go to the movies for $4 or $5, and I’m talking about an evening show!  These were the days when Family Matters, you walked Step by Step to a Full House, and other random 90’s television show references as well!

This was a time when you knew the difference between a face and a heel.

And here you thought we weren’t going to be talking about wrestling.

When I began watching the then-WWF in 1993, you could draw a definite line between the good guys and the bad guys.  It was plain as day.  Bret Hart? The ultimate good guy, always battling the odds and fighting for what was right.  Jerry Lawler?  Totally a villain, what with his insults to the crowd and his demeaning looks.   Now, maybe it was because I was a kid and believe what my elders told me (even if my elders were Bobby Heenan and Randy Savage), but I never had a question in my mind as to who the faces and the heels were.

Flash forward to today.  Look around the WWE - can you really tell the difference anymore?

The Teacher's Lounge: Fantasy Booking Plan C-Na

In yesterday’s Teacher’s Lounge, I tried to answer the question “Why do we hate John Cena?”  Today, I have a little fun playing booker and come up with a way that instantly makes John Cena more popular with the older WWE crowd, or at the very least, more interesting.

Summer Slam

John Cena and Brock Lesnar are in the middle of an epic battle for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.  Triple H is, as usual, seated at ringside.  Paul Heyman stalks around outside, making faces that rival only William Regal and Vince McMahon for their storytelling ability.

As the match reaches its climax, we see Lesnar kick out of the Attitude Adjustment, while Cena barely manages to escape the F-5.  Michael Cole has let us know we have seen “the turning point” in the match 319 times, JBL continues to laud the skills of these athletes, while Lawler says this is the best match he’s ever seen over and over again.

The Teacher's Lounge: Why do we hate John Cena?

Why do we hate John Cena?

Why is it that the majority of adults who watch
professional wrestling groan every time they hear his music?  Why do we despise the jean shorts (Austin wore them), the multi-colored t-shirts with bumper sticker phrasing (The Rock was a slogan machine) and his incessant way of reminding us all exactly where he is?  (In case you had forgotten, the champ is here.)

Do we detest the man himself?  Hardly.  We admire his tenacity to accomplish what he has done in the world of wrestling and we applaud his dedication to charitable work.  Yet why are the WWE fans that frequent social media so rabidly against him?

There is another wrestler who shared a similar fate as John Cena; idol of children, irritant to everyone else.  Like it or not, John Cena is this century’s Hulk Hogan, and by identifying the two biggest similarities between the two, we can discover why Cena finds himself in his current predicament.

1.  John Cena and Hulk Hogan have / had stale characters.