John Cena vs. The Rock: WWE Finally Knows How to Make Fans Cheer for Cena

It took months of stale promos, incredibly nasty 'Cena Sucks!' t-shirts, a long, drawn-out demonic feud with Kane that led to the world-changing heel turn (of Eve Torres, yaaaaaay?) and a slogan that simply stated 'Rise Above Hate' to bring out WWE's desperation in making the famed Cena-Rock feud into a balanced contest. 

And fail in their efforts they did, young padawans.

A year of Cena promos with him pointing the microphone at the crowd and robotically repeating 'I am what I am' will not influence our emotions and it didn't. Telling us what exactly you are will.

I find it incredibly irksome that we sat through the entire Kane feud, which we now know was just a waste of virtual space, with no alteration in Cena at all.

I didn't expect him to turn heel, to save the pop for WrestleMania and I couldn't care less about an Eve Torres heel turn, but I did expect more drastic consequences from a feud that involved magical fire, autonomous stage and arena lights and matches that featured (and in one case) and even overshadowed a couple of gimmick PPVs.

An edge in his character, a Long Island Episode from Hell (i.e. under the arena) or even a new type of Fruity Pebbles cereal which comes in burnt horribly and spells out 'This is what happens when we embrace the hate, kiddies!' Anything. Just anything drastic.

But we didn't get that. Rewind back and you'll vaguely remember a stale feud with Del Rio and one where he unintentionally became the bad company guy against rebellious CM Punk.

Now you know why he's garnered even more hate...something Jinder Mahal still hasn't. It was a simple solution of letting Mahal be Mahal and letting Cena be Cena.

While I'm not sure what exactly Jinder Mahal is, I think I can confidently ask and answer the question 'So what is John Cena?'

In brief: A wrestling Superman who takes a Big Show-worth inordinate load of beating in every match but ends up throwing his opponent off Ambulances and other vehicles and ends their careers and calls divas Hoeskis and is still considered the icon of the PG era and the kids' hero.

Okay, that wasn't brief but in my defense, anything involving Big Show can't be small. Please keep reading, I solemnly swear (on Undertaker's hair) that was the last lame joke.

In reality, however, John Cena is this huge, well-built dude who tours the world every year and gives a show nearly every day of his life and spends hours working on his skill (no matter how controversial it may be) and giving interviews and signing autographs and making appearances.

He is the kind of guy who will rumble down and friggin' kill you in an instant if you mouth anything against his profession and the people who cherish his profession. In all terms and definitions of the word, he is the modern-day People's Champion.

An exhaustive excavation into this avatar (and the only avatar) of the actual John Cena will do. You see, this week's promo implied a ton of things, primary among which...The Rock is this power-hungry vain dude who is the kind of celebrity who considers the mid-card guys as not cool enough on his personal Electricity meter.

He's the person who'll walk into a show and intentionally steal the limelight off the Mizes and Sheamuses, who incidentally and rather unfortunately spent years building up and perfecting their 'Really's and 'OIL FYT IM!' for this WrestleMania promo.

He'll do all that, and then jiggle his eyebrow and then just strut back into his limousine and jet off to his next colossal movie promotion.

I love Rock by the way, just showing you his vices in this feud.

A lot of people in this world criticize Triple H for being a 13-time champion and Cena for a 10-time champion when Rock isn't one. What they fail to see is that Dwayne gave up that right when he chose to do his Pec-Pop of love and bounce cherries off his chest on the movie screen.

Had he stayed, he would have made Ric Flair's title record something not worth praise. Worth acknowledgement yes, but not worth praise. I'm talking rather realistically about a hypothetical 20-time champion.

But he didn't stay.

We didn't need shirts or slogans or men in masks to make this a balanced feud. We needed the truth.

The truth that John Cena will never let go of WWE for anything in the world, and unlike Dwayne, would be here for all the shows as long as his neck stays injury-free and as long as he isn't trapped in the indestructible Cole Mine by Kane (or isn't dragged to Hell by Eve Torres).

He knows he's got the talent, the skill and he's got enough humility to know that there are men out there in the locker room and in FCW who need sparks of inspiration and advice from big guys like him, and he goes there every day to hang with them and make them feel like superstars. He genuinely loves the sport and loves the people in it.

And that was why people loved him. Well, once upon a time. 

Shalaj Lawania is gradually getting older at Bleacher Report and that's about it. You can become a fan of his if you like his work or follow him on Twitter (@_Apex_Predator_) if you really can put up with his useless tweets. Annoying tweets or not, do leave a comment for this article!