Hell In a Cell 2013. John SUPER Cena returns months ahead of schedule from his arm surgery and is thrown straight into a championship bout against Alberto Del Rio for the 2nd (or 1st depending on your view) most prestigious belt in the WWE. Let’s all be honest, we knew from the moment it was booked that Cena would be walking out of Miami with that belt. He is now 2 major title reigns away from matching Ric Flairs haul of 16.
Love him or hate him John Cena will not be vacating the main event status for many years to come, and this is precisely why the WWE creative have made a good turn in giving him this run with the WHC. Del Rio has had some up’s and downs this year with the belt; his feuds with RVD, Christian, Swagger have all been rather… stale. He didn’t work as the face champion at all, and fans never really bought into his heel turn. His breakup with Ricardo was possibly the highlight of his heel run, and I did appreciate that he would pick on opponent’s weaknesses in his title defence match’s (Ziggler’s concussion, Cena’s arm, genuinely taping Big Show to a rope so he couldn’t get up) But the fact that his defence of the title at Battleground was the PPV opener really displays how little WWE rank this title now.
Step in John Cena now as champion, you’ll see kids with “U Can’t C me” sweat bands every week at every arena, despite what the older wrestling fan may think of him, Kid’s still love this guy. The pull of him alone being a main event superstar will already give the belt some momentum it’s needed all year. It should also make the competition for the belt seem more respectable (not that Christian / RVD weren’t). But maybe this means the bigger back stage stars will be drafted into bouts for this belt now.
I strongly suspect that Sandow will feud for a while now given his unsuccessful cash in on Raw after Hell in a Cell, and perhaps Cena will put him over. But by having him as the current champion now, it’ll look good for whoever is battling him for the title over the coming weeks & months. I fully suspect he’ll lose the belt in 2013 to someone, just a matter of who WWE feels deserve the shot at this reinvigorated championship.
– Murr
