We Need a Hero, Part 1

The creation of a “Baby-Face” in pro wrestling is an old but effective process.

Step 1 — Give the fans a hero. He should be fit, charismatic, humorous, humble, and attractive. He should be honest and forthright and friendly, the kind of dude you’d want to go have a beer with. Get the fans to cheer for him and respect him. Get them to love him.

Step 2 — Hurt him. Make him suffer endless humiliations. Unleash the ugliest, cockiest, most cowardly bad guys on him. Humiliate him. Have disgusting sissies and monsters and evil sadists grind his face into the mat, tie him up, make him cry out in pain as his body is twisted, slammed, and broken.

That’s it. That’s the whole process, and it works every time.

The Baby-Face process has definitely worked like magic for John Cena — one of the most beloved and tortured fan favorites in the history of wrestling. For years now, he’s been taking some of the most amazing, most unbelievable whippings each week. He’s been double-teamed, triple-teamed, Pedigreed, Sleepered, Figure-Foured, Pile Driven, stomped, and generally busted up and injured.

And Cena’s thick arms, bigger than most guys’ legs, are little use to him when he spends most of his matches flat on his back, beaten into submission and limp as a dish towel. The bad guys (or the writers) come up with the most sadistic and creative ways to trap him and hurt him, smashing him through tables, handcuffing him, bashing his skull or his body into whatever hard metal objects they can find. It’s just downright brutal. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen his rugged face go limp, his eyes glaze over, as he collapses onto the mat — a He-Man reduced to a Raggedy Andy.I know what some of you are thinking — WWE isn’t as fun to watch as it used to be. There is too much talk and not enough ring action in modern pro wrestling. Cena needs to wear trunks instead of those out-of-style jeans shorts. Whatever. You know that Cena suffers as good or better than any pretty-boy fan favorite from the Golden Age, and the cameras today are excellent at capturing his agony and degradation up-close and in Hi-Def.

So at least tune in for the last 20 minutes of WWE Raw, when Cena usually gets his most agonizing whippings. Trust me, it’s good punishment of a beloved hero.