#1 – John Cena
John Cena was one of the biggest names to rise up after the Attitude Era, with a brand new Smackdown landscape to master his craft, and grow a steady fanbase. With several WWE Championship reigns and a few WrestleMania main events, he was definitely one of the top stars of the Brand Extension Era, but he wasn’t truly “the man” until the PG Era began, when Batista left, Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair retired, and names like Triple H and The Undertaker fell to part-time status. During the Brand Extension it was John Cena proving himself against legends – in the PG Era he became the legend, and the rest of the roster had to go through him.
Cena is without a doubt the most simultaneously beloved and hated man of the last 10 years. He has more fans than the rest of the babyface roster combined, and more detractors than the heels put together. But when I surveyed Twitter, asking “who were the 3 biggest stars of the PG Era”, a full 100% of people had John Cena as the FIRST PERSON they mentioned.
You can say what you want about being “bored” of John Cena – that you’ve “Cena ’nuff”, but the reality is when it comes time for a big match, the guy almost always delivers. It’s 2014, he’s 37-years-old, and John’s had at least three four-star matches already this year. I’d like to actually do the math, but I think if you counted up who had the most four-star or five-star matches between 2008-2013, John Cena would have to be somewhere near the top of that list.
Daniel Bryan, SummerSlam 2013. Dolph Ziggler, TLC 2012. Brock Lesnar, Extreme Rules 2012. Alberto del Rio, Vengeance 2011.
CM Punk, Money in the Bank 2011, SummerSlam 2011, Night of Champions 2012, and Monday Night Raw 2013. The entire 2010 Batista trilogy. Randy Orton on way too many occasions to count.
Love him or hate him, you’ve got to respect him. John Cena was the biggest, the best, and the single most important WWE Superstar of the PG Era.
