Like all of John Cena’s feuds over the past few years, his feud with AJ Styles was built on respect: whether Styles has it, and whether he deserves it. The final salvo before they met at the Royal Rumble was a promo Cena cut on Styles on Smackdown, where he scoffed at Styles being an indie wrestling darling, and downplayed Styles’ independent success because he, Cena, was busy making money and being the face of WWE while Styles was working bingo halls.
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports prior to the Rumble, Styles was asked his thoughts about how the thinks Cena would fare on the indie scene (or would have in the past). Here’s what the Champ Who Runs The Camp had to say.
“Let’s talk about that. The independent scene is really hard. When I say that, it’s because you may be the guy coming in from a different state that no one knows. So, how are you going to have people react? A lot of that has to take place through stuff they haven’t seen before and stuff they didn’t expect in the ring. That takes a lot of athletic ability to get eyes on you and to pay attention sometimes. Every type of wrestling you can think of, you need to adapt to this guy who might only do lucha stuff or this guy might be 6-foot-8, so we know he’s not doing that. All that stuff has to happen.
“But I say that [to say] how John Cena would do, nobody is really going to know. But I would venture to say as a nobody coming in, eyes would be on John Cena based on his look alone. He’s a tank. He’s a jacked-up man. That’s the first thing people would see, so he would get a reaction on the way he looks. Now, what happens in the ring won’t be as easy because the whole ‘You Can’t See Me’ thing, people aren’t going to go and do that with him because people haven’t seen him before. There’s a lot that goes into the independents that a lot of people don’t understand. Who’s to say whether John would have done well or done terrible in the indies. How will we ever know? We won’t.”
He’s absolutely right. In hindsight, Cena was always destined to be Cena. His time in OVW and in California’s UPW was brief, and once he was on the main roster, it wasn’t long before his “Doctor of Thuganomics” character hit and it was off to the races. You’re never going to see him in PWG or CHIKARA or Ring of Honor or even New Japan. (You’re also never going to catch him in the next man’s sweater, but that’s not important right now.)
It’s pointless to wonder how Cena would do on the indies, but he’d probably do pretty damn well, because he’s one of the best pro wrestlers of all time. He’s not going to have the craziest moves or anything, but neither does Cody Rhodes, and the former Stardust is doing pretty well for himself on the indies right now. Wrestling is wrestling: if you’re good at the very top level, you’re probably good at all the levels.
Besides that; did you see the match he had with Styles on Sunday? Or the match the two had at SummerSlam? If you don’t think either of those wouldn’t have torn the house all the way down as the main event at the American Legion Hall in Reseda, I have no idea what to tell you.
