WWE Survivor Series 2011: John Cena Set Up for Defining Victory at WrestleMania

From what I've been able to gather in the last couple of days, the general agreement among fans is that WWE could have handled the Survivor Series showdown between The Rock and John Cena and the Awesome Truth a little better.

"Better" in this case means less predictably.

As great as it was to see The Rock kicking ass for the first time since 2004, the match as a whole ended up being a by-the-numbers affair. The Rock did his thing, Cena was basically used as a prop and The Miz and R-Truth lay smoldering in ruin at the end.

The Rock hitting him with a Rock Bottom after the match was over was a twist that everyone saw coming.

As predictable as the proceedings were, it's much easier to understand why WWE arranged things the way they did. I've already written that they played it safe, but I have to say I'm not quite as annoyed by that now as I was before.

A couple days' worth of reflection helped me realize that WWE basically had no choice but to play it safe.

The twists will come later, when the Rock-Cena feud takes center stage at WrestleMania XXVIII in April. That's when The Rock and Cena will throw down—and that's when I hope WWE will have the cojones to take a chance or two.

The only trouble is that they have backed themselves into a corner with the way they chose to play the Rock-Cena feud at Survivor Series.

They could have changed the nature of the feud, but they kept it the same. The Rock is the big, bad bully with all the support in the world, and Cena is the unlovable underdog who is going to win this blasted thing on his own terms.

Given the circumstances, I'd say a victory for Cena at WrestleMania is now pretty much the only option for WWE.

Shoot, he's too much of an underdog not to defeat The Rock. That's the path WWE has chosen to, um, continue to tread. We can debate that a Cena heel turn would have been much cooler, but this is WWE's story and they're sticking to it.

It can only end in victory, not defeat.

I mean, come on—it's not like WWE is going to let The Rock actually win in April. A Rock victory would be just fine for the Miami crowd, sure, but it's in WWE's interest to make sure he doesn't have all the fun. They can't send a message that a man who's barely around has the run of the place, especially not when WWE lacks new stars.

Cena is not, and won't be, a new star, of course, but at least he's a WWE guy. And since WWE doesn't seem to have much interest in changing his persona, the next best thing is to make him the guy that took a whole bunch of crap from The Rock and then beat him to a pulp in single combat.

Compared to what Cena is now—a good guy that everybody despises—this isn't the worst decision WWE could have made. I'm actually interested to see how they will play it after the deed is done.

As I see it, there's just one problem with all this.

Now that I've said it, it's predictable.

Damn it.