There’s a difference between good heat and bad heat.  There is of course, the good heat in which the fans passionately boo or cheer the wrestler that they love (or love to hate).  The bad kind is apathy.  These wrestlers are excuses to use the bathroom because you couldn’t care what the hell they do.  There is of course a little thing called X-Pac heat too, but that’s another matter.  However, after watching some of John Cena’s recent matches there is another kind of heat.  John Cena heat.

Anytime Cena wrestles there are two chants from the thousands of fans in the arena.  The kids and drooling ladies chant “lets go Cena” while the men all yell “Cena sucks”.  Not a one of them is chanting either for or against John’s opponent.  There was next to no crowd reaction for R-Truth during his PPV match against Cena.  This isn’t a matter of him being a heel.  Look at the earlier Rey Mysterio vs. CM Punk match, which had dueling positive chants for both men.  If the fans are invested with the Superstar they will react to that guy no matter what the story line or which side he’s on.

This does nothing to help out any of Cena’s opponents.  To take a previous blonde super hero champion of the past, whether you loved or hated Hulkamania, you reacted to his enemies.  Roddy Piper said it best, “do you think they would have loved you so much if they didn’t hate me?”  NO!  Whether its Piper or any of the other monster heels of the time, you reacted to both men.  We cheered Hogan but also vehemently booed Bundy, Andre, Savage, Earthquake, DiBiase, Slaughter, even the Big Boss Man!  Even the lowest of feuds, with Zeus, had Savage and/or DiBiase to help support the angle.

We can debate all day on this.  Was the writing better back then?  Or was it just because we were children?  It doesn’t really matter.  The point is that Super-Cena is limited because he lacks a rogues gallery that any of us can care about.  Why is Batman awesome?  Because he has dozens of amazing villains that can be thrown in his movies two at a time.  And there are still plenty that have yet to be featured!  Whereas Superman fights Lex Luthor every fucking time!

Seriously, who has gotten over because of a feud against John Cena?  Edge?  That may be the only one, and honestly Edge would have made it to the main event with or without his many matches against John Cena.  CM Punk and The Miz got over on their own.  And yet they are still drowned out by the “Cena sucks” chants.

Over on Smackdown Randy Orton has his fans and Christian gets booed because the fans are hurt that he turned his back on them.  Excellent, Randall is being cheered on his own and Christian is being booed on his own.  Neither man’s fan reaction is dependent on who they are in the ring with.  Someone needs to take the wheel against John Cena and steer the fans over to their side.  Oh look, CM Punk has a microphone in hand on Raw…