John Cena and the importance of the World Heavyweight Championship

John Cena returned at Hell In a Cell with a lot of frenzy surrounding his ‘superhuman’ abilities to get back way earlier from a ‘career threatening’ injury. He undoubtedly won the World Heavyweight title from Alberto Del Rio and thus began his reign as a 14 time world champion. That reign has so far been nothing special to talk about. The championship that Cena holds does not get much attention as much as his ‘SuperCena’ persona. Week after week Michael Cole goes on loop talking about the greatness of Cena, the great deeds of Cena, the great career of Cena and the great strength of Cena. For the second straight week Alberto Del Rio made his way to the arena during Cena’s matches and sat on commentary and probably gave one of the most funny and apt lines in reply to Michael Cole, ”Yes, yes Michael Cole, we all know you’re in love with Cena.”

Alberto Del Rio’s appearance during all of cena’s matches is the only proof of the championship match happening at Survivir Series. This is how WWE chose to expand this feud. This is how they treat a talented wrestler like Alberto Del Rio, who for all the accolades he’s received has never been really connected with crowd and that can be attributed to WWE creative’s lack of consistency with any of their superstars.

Championships don’t make a superstar. A superstar makes a championship worth fighting for. The World heavyweight Championship is a symbolic entity that establishes the fact that WWE defeated WCW in the ratings and eventually bought its competition. It is the symbol of Vince McMahon’s victory and subsequent reign as the major wrestling promoter in America and in the world.

The championship also has a heritage of some of the greatest superstars ever holding it. Agreed that a superstar should strive to be bigger than the championship but championships are there for a reason. If championships were not so important, the wrestlers or superstars should just face off in the ring, win or lose and that’s the end of it. But championships are there to be worth something fighting for.

So even though a championship reign or several championship reigns are not enough to make a superstar a legend but they are quite important in carrying any storyline in the WWE forward. The World Heavyweight Championship, Intercontinental championship and the US championship don’t have great storylines or any storyline to make them seem worth fighting for.

A decline in the importance of titles only goes on to show how weak storylines have been in the WWE. WWE can go on length promoting the everpresent SuperCena image but even he can’t save the World Heavyweight Championship.