Was Reigns or Cena more of a "manufactured star"

[stayhomeneet]

Not to say that neither of these guys got over on there own, I mean Cena certainly did up to winning his first title.

But it's fair to say that a large number of fans grew bored of both during their long periods of dominance atop the card.

I'd argue reigns is worse because at least when Cena was the champion, the secondary world title still felt somewhat important, whereas for reigns they have relegated the secondary world title to basically intercontinental level.

I think with reigns it's so bad that they have actually intentionally made him part time because fans know his routine wouldn't work if they had him out there at every ppv and 2 or 3 raws a month winning by cheating every time, so they have to limit his appearances to try and offset the fan boredom with him.

[BigElephant]

Roman is definitely more compelling and interesting than SuperCena days. Him being gone for most of the time the last year has hurt his case but he's still better for me. Roman was initially a manufactured star, they tried to make him basically just a more badass version of Cena but it backfired and people either didn't care or outright booed him. The only time this didn't happen is when the Shield reunited.

Despite some parts of it not making sense, the Bloodline is the best storyline in wrestling since the Authority arc. Not only does Roman get to lean in more and more to being a cocky prick, but it also helped everyone involved. Before the Bloodline, I couldn't even tell the Usos apart. They had no differential personality traits. Now they've developed, Jey is a star on his own, Jimmy isn't quite on Jey's level but he's been elevated, and Solo is positioned to be a dominant force, although a lot needs to be done developing him as a character yet.

He should definitely be at every PPV, MAYBE miss one once in a while. He should also be winning clean here and there to maintain his legitimacy. He should not need help to beat guys like Riddle, Mysterio, Sami, et cetera. Then he can be on a couple Smackdowns a month in backstage segments or promos for the PPV match or just to keep the story with Jimmy/Solo/Paul going. If you let him beat a couple of these guys clean people won't get tired of it as much when he beats Cody or LAK or (most likely) Randy with help.

With Cena though it just destroyed the credibility of everyone else on the roster. The viewer knew 100% that Cena was going to beat anyone 1 on 1 if the odds were even and there was no cheating. That itself wasn't the whole store though. On top of that, Cena 90% of the time had this happy go lucky demeanor and buried the gimmicks of his opponents by just not taking them seriously.

This is a big reason why so many people got behind CM Punk initially, myself included. I was already a big fan of his from his Straight Edge Society work on Smackdown. Punk was the counterculture, the embodiment of the frustration fans felt towards Super Cena. Not only was he a better wrestler at the time (2011) he was a better mic guy than Cena and as such didn't get trampled by him in promos.

It's also a big reason people got behind Brock even though he was a heel. Brock has always been my favorite, but when he came back to WWE he was booked terribly. The Extreme Rules match against Cena was an awesome match and told a great story, but Brock had no business losing his first match back in WWE. In fact his first clean win during his return didn't come until he beat the Streak. He had Extreme Rules loss to Cena, win over Triple H after a low blow, loss to Triple H at WM, win over Triple H due to Heyman interference, and win over CM Punk due to Heyman interference. At WM30 I was so pissed they picked Brock to face Taker because I figured it would just be another disappointment in what could have been a great return. I marked out like hell when he beat Taker though first because of the surprise and enormity of the moment and second because finally Brock got booked right, even though the match was ass but hard to blame anyone there because Taker was concussed.

Then came the Summerslam match, and oh boy was that a satisfying moment just to see Brock ragdoll Cena around and take the titles from him. I wasn't the only one either, on the broadcast you could hear "thank you Lesnar" chants.

If Roman were to hold the title for another 2 years with like 6 total title defenses in that time and all of them being DQs or ref knocked out or interference then yeah I could see it getting to that point. But as it stands now it's not even close to that yet.

[liftandsleep30]

i would say reigns since they already planned to have reigns as the face of the wwe while cena got over so much that they had to do it

cena's thuganomic gimmick from 2003 to 2005 gave him that push to stardom then wwe had to shove it down everyone's eyes

they saw reign as the guy they wanted to make a star

u can see the difference between 2014 royal rumble when it was reign vs batista in the end vs 2015 rumble where they didnt want reigns to win cause fan knew where it was going

[LargePeter]

Super Cody, minus the title, is far worse than Super Cena

Cody is running around taking down three at a time with a damaged ankle and he's doing run in saves on Smackdown when LA Knight, who is feuding with the Bloodline, gets jumped.

[engieone]

the question of who was the more "artificial star" is a matter of opinion. Every fan will have their own opinion. But the fact remains that both wrestlers were promoted by WWE as top stars and both were successful in doing so.

[SmithMachineGuy]

Reigns.

Reigns was selected before he proved anything. He never worked his way to the top spot. It was just saved for him.
Reigns was given opportunity to fail time and time again. On the biggest stages. He got booed out of the building in the main event of Wrestlemania! Nobody wanted him. Yet he still kept getting the top spots for years. Eventually they found what works for him. but it took failing for like 10 years. No one else was allowed to fail that much at such a high level.

Cena became popular organically.
Then he got over-pushed, but only half the fans turned on him.

The difference between them is Cena is a great talker. He can go in there by himself and entertain the entire building. Reigns does not have that. People say Reigns is charismatic, and he is, but he needs someone to bounce off. Like if you needed to fill for time, you can send Cena out there with nothing planned and he will make magic. Same scenario, you send Reigns out there with nothing, he will fall flat. That's not a really a criticism of Reigns, but just how special Cena was.

[yieldtonothing]

cena got over organically. it was just that once he got to the top, they kept force feeding him down everyone's throats

[squat_blaster]

Reigns.

Reigns was selected before he proved anything. He never worked his way to the top spot. It was just saved for him.
Reigns was given opportunity to fail time and time again. On the biggest stages. He got booed out of the building in the main event of Wrestlemania! Nobody wanted him. Yet he still kept getting the top spots for years. Eventually they found what works for him. but it took failing for like 10 years. No one else was allowed to fail that much at such a high level.

Cena became popular organically.
Then he got over-pushed, but only half the fans turned on him.

The difference between them is Cena is a great talker. He can go in there by himself and entertain the entire building. Reigns does not have that. People say Reigns is charismatic, and he is, but he needs someone to bounce off. Like if you needed to fill for time, you can send Cena out there with nothing planned and he will make magic. Same scenario, you send Reigns out there with nothing, he will fall flat. That's not a really a criticism of Reigns, but just how special Cena was.

This. Roman still isn't over. Take away Heyman and Bloodline and see what happens. He will fail because ignoring X-Pac go away heat will no longer be an option. The last time Roman was on his own, they ran out of ideas.

[ChunkBuster]

Super Cody, minus the title, is far worse than Super Cena

Cody is running around taking down three at a time with a damaged ankle and he's doing run in saves on Smackdown when LA Knight, who is feuding with the Bloodline, gets jumped.

Cody should be in polka dots…

[Superplex]

Cena had a lot to do with manifesting his own career, this is documented, he spoke at a young age about becoming the champ & he invented the prototype persona. He sought out training & he made a number of moves correctly which ultimately resulted in John getting a major push from the McMahons, which he already knew the importance of.

Rhodes was on a grind, remember his debut? He's been on a long journey to even be considered for contention. I could try to explain that, but there's no blame anywhere. It's all about development & impact & people have different paths & the business is meant to be that way, & what Cody did was brilliant. He recognized this system for what it is & played his role & what more can you really ask for other than a good in-ring performance?

Reigns right, everyone says he got all the help. He had Dusty. He had McMahon. You name it, Heyman. They were all at his disposal. I'm not attempting to insult anyone but also remember, Reigns wouldn't be there either if he hadn't met their standards. He moved through a pre-built system & that system knew he didn't know what John knew coming in but he had his own personal strengths which is why he's where he is right now.

[kneeonbelly]

Cena got over on his own originally. his original thug gimmick that rapped , with bull bucanon (B2) yelling 'Booyaah' was OVER. He was hilarious and was a break out star that year. he had his own CD that came out and was supported by fans back then.

THEN he did the marine movie came back as a corporate good guy that toned down the raps and turned up the 'never give up patriot ' guy . that guy was the one people got tired of

Reigns was manufactured from the moment he became a singles guy

[BigElephant]

Yeah to add to my previous response. I would agree with the other posters that Cena had more to do with getting himself over thus making Roman more manufactured. My point was that Cena's force fed run was much more insufferable than Roman's, which I actually enjoyed up until he started winning EVERY match with help and only showing up once every 3 months.

[Cleveland33]

Cena actually has talent.

[drakkarman]

i stopped watching before they started pushing cena to the moon when they fired scoot hall . i would say cena was pushed far more they still use that stupid cena ybaa do music on the smackdown commercials