John Cena's Injury a Symptom of WWE Overworking Its Superstars

John Cena's shoulder giving out on him was as inevitable as millions of miles wearing a tire down to the metal. WWE's brutal schedule puts crushing pressure on its Superstars.

The solider of the squared circle is just the latest name added to a long list of wrestlers on the mend.

After he missed Raw on Jan. 4, news broke that his shoulder needed to be repaired. Cena announced his trip to the disabled list on Twitter. Soon after, WWE.com confirmed that the procedure was a success:

"

UPDATED DETAILS & PHOTOS; @JohnCena successfully underwent shoulder surgery https://t.co/UOylC3YXPW pic.twitter.com/cPJAvOm599

— Joey Styles (@JoeyStyles) January 8, 2016"

Cena's need for surgery should surprise no one, though. That's been a running theme for WWE of late.

Currently, Tyson Kidd, Natalya, Nikki Bella, Cesaro, Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan, Sting and Sin Cara are all recovering from injuries. Note too that every champion from WrestleMania 31 (Cena, Bryan, Nikki, Cesaro, Kidd and Rollins) is out of action.

With so many marquee names not available, WrestleMania 32 plans are shot. WWE is left to scramble.

Blame some of that on bad luck. The timing for these injuries is terrible. Beyond that, though, it's a reminder that WWE needs to rethink how much it asks of its stars.

The company is fully aware of the grueling nature of its schedule. In 2014, WWE released a detailed financial report that acknowledged that fact. It read, "We hold numerous live events each year. The physical nature of our events exposes our performers to the risk of serious injury or death."

"Numerous" is an extraordinary understatement. Dean Ambrose, for example, wrestled in 218 matches last year. Roman Reigns had 213 matches on his plate.

Cena knows full well what a 200-bout year feels like. The fan favorite has long been a WWE workhorse and, not coincidentally, a recurring visitor to the surgeon's table.

Compare what WWE asked of Hulk Hogan when he was the company's biggest star to what Cena has done in recent years. The Hulkster certainly stepped into the ring often during this five-year stretch: 

• 1986 (136 matches)
• 1987 (160)
• 1988 (91)
• 1989 (110)
• 1990 (78)

Cena, meanwhile, has outdone Hogan in terms of workload in the last five years:

Hogan's match total was 575 in that stretch. Cena competed 828 times. And that's even with a two-month hiatus in 2015, time off after arm surgery in 2012 and triceps surgery the year after that.

That 253-match difference creates a plethora of added opportunity to fall awkwardly or tear a joint. The wear and tear those added bouts create leave him more vulnerable to injury, too.

JP Yim/Getty Images

On Indeed Wrestling, Chris Harrington highlighted how the wrestlers who worked the matches in any given year inevitably suffered an injury (or two) in result.

Cesaro wrestled most often in 2014. He is currently sitting at home, recovering from rotator cuff surgery. Rollins' workload was just behind the Swiss strongman's. Rollins eventually tore his MCL and ACL.

Harrington tracked the trend back to 2006, when Cena competed in more matches than anyone else on the roster before falling to a torn pectoral injury.

Before one starts wondering if the wrestlers from this era are simply not as tough as the pioneers of the business, think of how different the level of danger is today. 

Bruno Sammartino didn't wrestle a single Tables, Ladders & Chairs match. Lou Thesz never fell onto a ladder from the top rope. No one threw Killer Kowalski through an announce table.

Today's WWE is heavy with carnage, as the company constantly asks Superstars to collide with steel and wood. The fact that more wrestlers aren't injured with all the demolition-derby-like crashes that they take is a testament to how sturdy these performers are.

But these ultra-violent matches add up. Take enough chair shots to the back or downward flights through an announce table, and injuries are assured.

WWE relies on these gimmick matches in a big way. In 2015 alone, Cena wrestled 21 Street Fights, 14 Steel Cage matches, an "I Quit" bout and a Russian Chain match. Had he not been on hiatus at TLC, he may have had a TLC match to go along with all that.

That's insane.

The majority of those weren't even televised. Is it necessary to have Cena and his peers take the kind of bumps a Street Fight requires to please a house-show crowd? Why not rely more on standard wrestling? Why not save the ladders and tables for Extreme Rules?

Credit: WWE.com

The lack of an offseason in WWE is also to blame for Rollins, Cesaro and others ending up with surgery scars. 

Expecting the human body to hold up after year-round punishment is unreasonable. There's a reason NFL teams only play one game a week. There's a reason boxers space out their fights.

On Grantland, David Shoemaker wrote of the issue, "We can't ignore that wrestlers need time off. The laws of man might not apply to the gods of the squared circle, but the men who portray those deities are human beings. The schedule as it stands is grueling, borderline inhumane and largely unnecessary."

Recognizing that the WWE model makes it nearly impossible to have a full, everyone-gets-time-off period on the calendar, Shoemaker proposed that Superstars get "staggered and coordinated" sabbaticals.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated had the same line of thinking:

That's a must. The current system is a surefire formula for injury. It's a meat grinder.

And WWE will inevitably extend its stars' careers this way.

How much longer could Steve Austin have wrestled if he took more time off? Would Edge still have been forced into retirement if he'd given his neck time to heal each year? Had the WWE grind not left CM Punk so beaten down mentally and physically, would he still have left when he did? 

We can't know any of those answers, but there's no doubt that there is a serious issue with the amount of strain WWE puts on its Superstars. 

The company owes it to those men and women to search for a solution. WWE's doctors are far too busy. The roster is thinner than it has to be.

Match statistics courtesy of CageMatch.net.