With the passing of the Attitude era, WWE’s fans have mostly grown up and gone on to other pastimes. With the loss of these fans, the WWE’s demographic has changed from teens to children. Children love John Cena. The reason for this is that he’s like a starter pack for wrestling.
Personality wise he mixes elements of Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart and Steve Austin. He has Hogan’s superhero persona down pat, but he also adds elements of Bret’s underdog, fighting champion, and Austin’s “don’t take anything from anyone” attitude. All of these traits make him a cipher to more sophisticated, older audiences and take away from his being strong in any one area. This lack of standing for anything, however, means that he’s an all-purpose hero to the kids in the audience. That’s the cause of his popularity. While that’s reasonably obvious, here’s what’s been missed.
The WWE has recognized that Cena is popular mostly with children, whether they know the cause or not (I tend to think they do, but it’s irrelevant). John Cena’s matches are kept ridiculously simple so that children can be trained about what to look for in a wrestling match. We know Cena can do longer and more complex matches, but most of his in-match storytelling efforts are the simple bases upon which all matches are built. Cena will tell a very simple underdog storyline, or use quick leg psychology in his matches and instead of building from there, that will usually be the entirety of the storyline. For a long time fan, this can be unsatisfying and make it seem like Cena doesn’t get the nuances of being a great wrestler. His occasional glimpses of more complex work then become frustration for the portion of the fanbase that already understands the simple wrestling through years of conditioning. In the end, however, conditioning the next generation of fans with a wrestler they can get behind is a necessary step in the continued survival of WWE.
Cena is for children. His popularity with them is derived from his everyman status, as he takes traits from many of wrestling history’s biggest names. This credibility to children allows the WWE to use Cena as a training mechanism in young wrestling fans, allowing them to learn what to expect from wrestling, how to recognize storytelling, and react appropriately to the action in the ring. Cena occasionally shows glimpses of more, which allows younger fans to build upon what they have already seen, while giving the older fans tantalizing glimpses of what’s to come when the next generation of fan matures.
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