John Cena Has to Put over Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania XXX

At WrestleMania XXX next month, John Cena absolutely needs to put over Bray Wyatt in a strong and credible manner.

It’s the only logical result—something the WWE bookers have to be aware of.

The most obvious reason for this is that Cena simply doesn’t need the win.

Credit: WWE.com

As the true face of the company (sorry, Randy Orton), he has been solidly protected—and overprotected—by the creative team over the past few years. He almost always ends Raw or the pay-per-views looking strong and has had too many world title runs to count.

He’s invincible. Nothing—barring an injury or an early retirement—poses a threat to his spot right now.

Is a loss, even a spotlessly clean one, in New Orleans really going to hurt or damage him in any way? Of course not. Vince McMahon has nothing to lose by allowing Wyatt to go over in the bout.

Credit: WWE.com

Of course, another factor is that Wyatt absolutely has to pick up the win on April 6 if fans are ever going to take him seriously as a top guy.

Since debuting last July, Wyatt and evil acolytes Erik Rowan and Luke Harper have made quite the impression on the WWE Universe.

Wyatt’s rambling, wordy and slightly unsettling promos are refreshingly different from the usual bland and cookie-cutter wrestling interviews fans are used to. His act genuinely stands out, no minor thing in WWE these days.

His in-ring skills are very respectable, too. (Check out Wyatt’s fantastic bout with Daniel Bryan at the Royal Rumble or his stellar contributions to the amazing Wyatt-Shield six-man tag matches.)

Wyatt has everything it takes to a main event heel in WWE—he just needs the booking team’s support.

This is where things may get tricky.

As depressing as it sounds, it’s very easy to envisage a scenario in which Wyatt loses cleanly to Cena and leaves New Orleans with his credibility in tatters.

Don’t believe me? Look at all the other up-and-comers WWE has sacrificed to Cena over the years.

Wade Barrett has never truly recovered from his one-sided 2010 program with Cena.

When Nexus debuted on Raw in June 2010, Barrett was the group's tough-talking, no-nonsense leader who was set to go all the way to the top.

Credit: WWE.com

Alas, by the time the Barrett vs. Cena feud had concluded in December of that year, Barrett was a floundering and unmotivated midcarder who had hit the glass ceiling hard.

Ryback also struggled badly after facing Cena in 2013. Granted, the wrestler was already struggling following his ill-conceived loss to CM Punk at Hell in a Cell a few months earlier and an out-of-nowhere heel turn soon after, but losing twice to Cena on pay-per-view did him no favors whatsoever.

Credit: WWE.com

And let’s not even get started on the deeply perplexing R-Truth-Cena storyline a couple of years ago, or what exactly that was meant to accomplish besides solidifying Truth as an awful midcard comedy act nobody should take seriously.

In all these cases, you can’t pin the blame on Cena personally.

He wasn’t doing the booking. I’m sure if WWE had asked him to put these guys over, he’d have acquiesced without a second thought.

Credit: WWE.com

You have to think at this point he’s probably desperate for the company to make some new main eventers—it would take the pressure off of him.

No, the responsibility lies with management and its heavy and almost paranoid reluctance to allow its top star look weak in any way possible.  That’s the problem.

Will management come to its senses and allow Wyatt to go over clean, or at least somewhat clean, at WrestleMania?

Let’s hope so. Because it would be a real shame to see Wyatt’s name added to the already long list of failed main eventers.