John Cena has been the face that runs the place for well over a decade and had a stranglehold on WWE’s main event scene for nearly that entire time. That’s why it was completely shocking to see that the franchise player did not main event any WWE pay-per-view (PPV) events for nearly 2 years from Survivor Series 2014 into October 2016.
That unbelievable streak was clearly going to end at No Mercy 2016 last October, because Cena was booked in a triple threat match for the WWE Championship against AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose. The streak was finally over!
Except it wasn’t.
That’s because there happened to be a presidential debate taking place that very same night, and so WWE shuffled around the match order and decided to open the card with Cena’s triple threat match.
WWE billed it as the first time ever that a main event match opened a PPV. And that’s all well and good if that’s how they want to define ‘main event’ match, but that doesn’t work for me. I need something more objective that isn’t subject to the whims of WWE and their loose rules that they change around all the time. Years down the line when new WWE fans are combing through the record books of WWE PPVs, they will see that Randy Orton versus Bray Wyatt closed out the No Mercy 2016 event.
So here we are 4 months later, and John Cena still has not closed out a WWE PPV since Survivor Series 2014, which is a span of 30 consecutive PPVs. Even his incredible 4.69 star championship match against AJ Styles at Royal Rumble 2017 couldn’t take the main event slot away from the actual Royal Rumble match itself.
But this time it’s happening for real. John Cena’s unbelievable main event streak is finally going to die this Sunday at Elimination Chamber 2017. Cena is now the 16-time heavyweight champion and is defending his coveted prize in the titular chamber match against all the top stars on SmackDown, as well as Baron Corbin. There is no way in hell this match is going to take a backseat to matches like Randy Orton versus Luke Harper or Alexa Bliss versus Naomi.
Right?
What do you think about this, Cagesiders? Will WWE come up with a last-minute excuse to screw Cena out of the main event match yet again, or will the face that runs the place finally reclaim his old spot?