WWE Extreme Rules 2012: John Cena Has Career-Defining Moment in Match with Brock

For seven years, World Wrestling Entertainment has done everything possible to get the majority of its crowds to accept John Cena. For seven years, fans have continually thwarted those attempts by voicing their displeasure with Cena's constant ability to overcome the odds and win his matches anyway.

There has been no crowd more consistent in their hate for John Cena than the one in Chicago. As someone in attendance for WrestleMania 22, I know first-hand how badly despised John Cena is in that city. An hour before the 2006 event, fans were heartily chanting "Cena sucks" and "F*** you Cena," without any piece of video or any sound bite prompting the reaction. When he appeared in the arena for his match with Triple H, the response the crowd gave him was one that I never had the opportunity to experience before and will likely never experience again. The crowd not only wanted him to lose the WWE title to Triple H, they wanted actual physical harm to be done to him.

The atmosphere at Money in the Bank, from what I could tell by watching at home, was consistent in the crowd's hatred for the leader of the so-called "Cenation." With Brock Lesnar coming to town, many expected another passionately negative reaction for Cena.

Early on, everything went according to plan. The crowd booed Cena, and cheered his ruthless attacker. But things slowly began to change. Brock beat Cena so badly, busting him open and injuring his left arm, that the fans began to sympathize, ever-so-slightly, with Cena.

And then it happened. Brock Lesnar leapt off the steel steps at Cena, and both men tumbled over the top rope and to the floor. It was a dangerous move that could have seriously injured both men. Lesnar made it to his feet, apparently escaping injury, and played to the crowd. Meanwhile, Cena wrapped the steel chain around his wrist, unbeknownst to Brock, and climbed on the apron.

Lesnar charged at Cena a second time, and John laid him out with the chain wrapped around his wrist. The long-time face of the company and the WWE itself accomplished something it had tried so hard to do for so very long—they had one of the most hostile crowds they would see all year cheering John Cena.

It was not a choreographed reaction. It was not something the company did to get the crowd to cheer the way they wanted them to. The reaction John Cena drew out of the Chicago crowd was as real as it gets in professional wrestling. Here was a guy so brutally beaten for the better part of fifteen minutes that, when he clocked Lesnar with that chain, the same fans that booed him so heavily for six years couldn't help but feel their sympathy for him explode and finally support him.

There were still boos. Those people had made up their mind a long time before the match that they were not going to cheer Cena. Those fans did not allow themselves to become emotionally invested in the match. That's fine. As paying customers, they earned that right and I can't tell them they are wrong for that. But those that allowed their allegiances to be put aside to really get into the story being told, accepted Cena, even if for the shortest period of time, and erupted for something as simple as his knockout punch.

The crowd support, about 70 percent in favor of Cena, continued after the match and when he addressed the crowd. It was a very real moment in the sports-entertainment industry, a moment only the extraordinarily talented performers such as Cena, Triple H, Undertaker, CM Punk and Chris Jericho can truly create.

John Cena has had hundreds of "moments" since assuming the mantle as the top star in the world of professional wrestling. Some were favorable moments; others (in front of the same Chicago crowd) were not. But at Extreme Rules, John Cena delivered what may have been the performance of his career. He bled for his craft. He was legitimately injured for his craft. He allowed Brock Lesnar to beat the unholy hell out of him for fifteen minutes, and he did it for his craft. And that performance converted the crowd to the point that they no longer cared if John Cena was the face of the company, or if he was Superman-esque, always overcoming the odds. They cared about John Cena the athlete and the story that he and Brock Lesnar were telling to them.

It was a magical moment that some may say this writer is overrating. Perhaps the fact that I was in Chicago, where I experienced those fans' hatred for John Cena first-hand, is clouding my judgment. But in a world where lethargic pay-per-views are becoming more plentiful, to see a single moment that affected even the smartest of marks the way it did is something truly special.

Extreme Rules 2012 was a moment that will define the career of one of WWE's most controversial, yet greatest, stars of all-time.