A Heel John Cena Meets Eddie Guerrero in a Parking Lot Brawl

WWE

Through much of his run at the top of the WWE, a lot of people wanted him to turn heel. It is basically an ingrained part of his legacy as the top babyface of the company that many people did not like him and wanted very badly for him to be a villain, so much so that that tension between him and the crowd informed some of his greatest on-screen work. When evaluating Cena’s legacy then, it’s key to take a look back at some of his early WWE work, when he actually was cast as the heel.

Before the WWE Championship run, Cena first started making his name as a loudmouthed white battle rapper—truly the most evil of characters. This took advantage of Cena’s genuine love for hip-hop and gave him an avenue to better display his natural charisma. And hey, fans like to play along with that kind of thing. Anticipating rhymes, reacting to the punchline, it’s all catnip for a live audience.

In this match, we see Cena in the blow off to one of his first major onscreen feuds against United States Champion Eddie Guerrero. After a series of TV matches, including one where Cena FUs Guerrero onto a tire, they now get to settle the score in a Latino Heat Parking Lot Brawl. And so a million sentimental video game modes were launched.

This is about as straightforward a heel performance as one might expect from Cena. He’s starts with a pre-match rap to get heat and then once Eddie drives into parking lot, Cena’s quick to sell for the babyface early despite having a clear size advantage. It’s never quite big heel stooging from Cena in this match, though there’s some moments like that such as getting his head rammed repeatedly into the steering wheel and getting burned with a cigarette lighter. Cena also takes some fun bumps into car hoods and windshields in service of making Eddie shine. Perhaps his best moment in this regard comes when Eddie rams Cena’s head through a car window and Cena gives us a real delightful spaghetti-legged concussed sell.

WWE, GIF-ed by Joseph Montecillo

Eddie himself shines most in this match by being so direct. It’s really only Cena that goes out of his way to introduce more plunder to this match, which works as him being a bully heel whereas Eddie’s approaching things a little smarter and less ambitious. All the violence Eddie applies feels so much more direct and attuned to the environment. It’s things like slipping Cena’s neck into a chokehold with a seatbelt, the aforemention steering wheel bashing, or hitting his signature frog splash off one car onto another. It’s all very good, solid stuff that takes the stipulation seriously and commits to the idea.

While it’s perhaps never as bloody or as violent as the later iterations of this stipulation in AEW, it’s a pleasant enough experience nonetheless. It’s perhaps most interesting from the perspective of seeing Cena could bring to the idea of working as a heel in a big blow off like this. He sticks to the basics, committing to the brawling, selling in big moments, and overall just committing to the ass beating without ever going over the top with it. It’s never quite as stoogy as one likes but that only serves as a reminder of the stunning balance he would strike in later years of being a situational heel that never betrayed his babyface character.

It’s a fun piece of TV overall. Glass breaking and dudes bleeding is just a bonafide formula for success.

Rating: ***3/4