What if John Cena was never pushed to the stars?

Now, at Wrestlemania 21, John Cena won his first WWE Championship, and ever since then, he has been WWE's go to guy. Eventually, having the longest WWE Championship reign since MCMLXXXIV (1984), has been a huge draw for WWE and his merchandise sells like crazy. Now, imagine if they went in a different direction. Instead of pushing John to the stars, they have him lose at Wrestlemania 21 and continue losing untill Cena returns to the mid card, losing most of his hype. WWE instead, decides to push someone else to the level they did with Cena, as they were obviously going to. So, what if that happened? Who would WWE of pushed instead of John Cena and when would it of been? How different would WWE be today? Would Cena of eventually made it back to the main event, if WWE had months of losing title shots and lost all the momentum he had going for him? I'll give my thoughts later.

One thing you have to ask yourself is would the person that got the push still be in WWE? Brock got a huge, bigger then Cena push and bailed on WWE. Cena is a company man and I think he will spend his entire career in WWE.

I am not sure who would have replaced Cena. I would say Orton but he got a push anyway. Maybe Orton's face push would have lasted longer without Cena.

I think WWE would still be going in the same direction they are now.

I guess no one will be replying so I guess it's time I take a crack at this...

Since I wasn't really watching WWE at that time only two names come to mind. One, Jeff Hardy. Sure, it'd be a about a year before he'd join the company but he'd be a perfect person to give Cena's push. It's not like the main events would be all the same within that period, as Batista still got his push. Anyways, despite my dislike for Jeff as a main eventer (which has to do with ability and suspensions) he pretty much was one of the most over in WWE when he was giving the chance. I know that his number of merchandise sold was close to those of John Cena. As for someone who wouldn't of taken as long, Edge. He won Money in the Bank and hell, they could of had him cash it in that night on JBL, turn face, and get pushed to the stars instead. The had a pretty open time period to make sure he could of made it extremely over as champion and it would be pretty easy to have him win the belt. CJ brings up a good point on whether or not they'd stay. I think Jeff may have stayed or at least, not gone back to TNA after he left and I'm sure Edge would of remained with the company.

I'm sure Cena would still get his time at the main event though. If WWE had enough faith in him to even put him in the main event of Mania, that means he has a chance of winning the title. Plus, Cena is that kind of guy that looks at this and tells himself this means he has to improve. Very few wrestlers to me have the work-ethic of John Cena, it's one of those things that separate him from the rest of the locker room. Maybe it wouldn't of been as big but I definitely think we'd see him as champion somewhere down the line.

As for how different WWE would be today, I can agree that they'd be heading in the same direction but I don't think they'd be as popular. If you look at everything, Cena has easily been a huge part of WWE's continous success. For starters, in a time where wrestling is at an all time low in popularity (compared to it's massive success durning the Monday Night War and the eightes) Cena managed (based off draw power) to be in the top twenty of WWEs biggest draws in history. When I read that list, I also read that he was expecting to pass Bret by the end of the year (who was thirteen), I think that proves how popular Cena is. I also think he is the most mainstream wrestler today, as Hogan and Austin were durning there days. I remember a few years back, my teacher asked my class two questions. One, "Who watches wrestling", which got abysmal hand raises (like two people besides me and said teacher) and two, "Who loves John Cena", which all but one or two of the girls raised their hands (the girl/boy ratio was about half/half in a class of like twenty five or so).

I also think Cena's movie career has helped him and WWE tremendously. Sure, they don't get good, or even OK, box office numbers, but they do well on DVD and they give WWE and Cena main stream exposure. No one can ignore Cena's drive to be the very best and I think Cena has improved by leaps and bounds, since he first took the WWE Championship from JBL.

It is hard for me to say Edge would have taken his push becuase Edge won the MITB that year and got a huge build up to his push. I also think Jeff Hardy would have ended up leaving anyway, because of his suspensions. Had Hardy been clean, or even mostly clean, he would have been a World Champion far sooner then he was and he would probably be about a 7 or 8 time World Champ at this point. The one person that got in Jeff's way was always Jeff. WWE does not want a champion that is probably going to fail the next drug test.