John Cena Removed From Upcoming Live Event; His WWE Raw Return Date
The Forum in Inglewood, California previously announced that they would host a WWE live event featuring Seth Rollins, John Cena, and Brock Lesnar on Saturday, December 19. It will be the first time WWE performs at The Forum in over two decades. Since Lesnar was advertised for the show, it looked like the WWE was possibly going to turn the live event into a WWE Network special like they did with the Beast in the East July 4th show and their Live MSG show at the beginning of October. I did a story on this when it was announced in October; you can click here to read that. The live event from The Forum could still very much be streamed on the network, however, the event will no longer include John Cena (and Seth Rollins due to injury). Cena has recently been removed from all of WWE’s official advertising for the upcoming show. He is currently filming episodes for a new reality series that will be aired on FOX. The series is called “American Grit” and Cena will be the host.
Cena’s in-ring return will now take place at the Madison Square Garden live event on December 26, which is a part of WWE’s Holiday Tour. He will go one-on-one against Alberto Del Rio; another match scheduled for the house show will be WWE Intercontinental Champion Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose. Cena’s return to Monday Night Raw will be on December 27 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Mark’s reaction:
Cena’s new reality series has kept him busy and I’m sure a lot of people won’t mind not seeing Cena on television for an extra week (assuming The Forum show is streamed on the WWE Network). It should be interesting to see where the WWE goes with Cena upon his return to Raw. I’d prefer if he got back into the U.S. title picture or even the Intercontinental title picture. I think fans are more accepting of John when he’s put in that role on the roster. Having him compete with the mid-carders/upper mid-carders helps create more meaningful storylines and rivalries. It also makes the mid-card feel important again. I’d like to think that this is the direction that the WWE will go with Cena but I feel like he’ll just be thrown in a WWE Championship match against Sheamus or whoever the champ is by the time he returns.
A new face of the WWE needs to be crowned sometime soon; Cena can’t do it forever. We can see that the WWE is even trying to do this now by grooming Roman Reigns for that spot. The only problem is, as long as John is around, I don’t see anyone taking over that top spot in the company. In order for this to happen Cena will really have to start taking a backseat to more wrestlers and jobbing more often than not. Even when he was the U.S. Champion he beat the (at the time) WWE Champion in Seth Rollins. After that it just kind of felt like WWE was saying, “Well, we all know Cena’s the best and could/should be WWE Champion, but he’s a little tired of holding the belt right now so he’ll just let Seth keep it warm until he changes his mind.”
How would you like to see John Cena booked when he returns? What championship would you like to see him go after if any? There have been some rumors swirling around on the internet that he’ll be facing The Undertaker at WrestleMania 32, would that be a match you’d be interested in? Let us know by leaving your thoughts in the comment section below.