Negative Campaigning

By Gavin Duenas (for the v2 journal)

With John Cena recording another verbal triumph over a rapidly diminishing Rock on this week’s Raw, it has occurred to me why The Rock is struggling so much.

As unlikely as this may have seemed at one time, could it be that there just isn't any anti-Cena material left?

Every possible criticism of Cena has already been thrown out there. The Rock himself started the trend when he returned last year, CM Punk carried it on in the summer, and WWE (and Cena) have embraced it. You can even buy “Cena Sucks” t-shirts from the company! And for the most part, Cena has no-sold it. So it's been established that a) ridiculing Cena is not original, and b) Cena doesn't care anyway.

On the flip side, the tearing down of Rock has been far more subtle, and, dare I say, cerebral. And, though completely counter-productive and for the most part unfair, the barbs Cena is now directing Rock's way contain just enough truth that he is being forced to address them. Where Cena was able to say "Yeah, I wear bad clothes and I don't care", Rock is having to defend himself and is getting dragged into a debate. He can't just say "I don't care if you think I'm only here to plug my movies", or "I don't care if you question my commitment", for fear of looking bad. He has to explain himself. And, once somebody is forced into explaining their actions, they are already backtracking and not looking anywhere near as strong.

Whereas The Rock has, for the most part, mocked Cena’s appearance and character portrayal, Cena is making personal criticisms of The Rock, i.e. Dwayne Johnson, as a human being.

The worrying thing for The Rock is that there isn’t much left to address about Cena as a human being without appearing petty. He’s a bad actor? Sounds too snobby. He uses the military to get himself over? Could be construed as anti-military. He’s homophobic? Hypocritical, plus, in all honesty, how much of the audience is actually going to cheer the guy who stands up for gay rights?! His punches are weak? Definitely not that one…

So what other valid criticisms are there of John Cena the human being? I literally can’t think of any. And this is where WWE and Cena have got The Rock over a barrel. I can’t see any way out of the corner he is backed into. Who would have thought a year ago that WWE would have done such a great job of making The Rock look completely inferior to John Cena?

And who would have thought Cena could look superior to The Rock, and yet not actually be in any better position than when this started?

http://v2journal.com/negative-campaigning.html

Good article, I wouldn't say the rock is struggling, he is putting cena over on the mic as cena no sells the great one.

The rock can't "shoot" on cena as he is the main guy in the wwe and there is no point in tearing him down only for rocky to leave after the match.

So the rock is left to do traditional promos and story telling, which cena just ignores, or even worse interrupts, then cena just shoots a little more.

Wwe have done well in this but I have a feeling people will turn off when cena goes over clean and we get a hand shake.