Lance Storm points out potentially glaring issue with The John Cena Classic format
John Cena recently revealed that The John Cena Classic Championship will be making its way to WWE programming in the near future, with a unique format featuring matches with main roster and NXT stars. The USP with the JCC is fans voting to determine who will be the John Cena Classic Champion.
What that means is, essentially, that wins and losses in the tournament do not ‘matter.’ You can lose a match in the Classic and still end up becoming the Champion….but only if the fans like you enough to vote for you.
Lance Storm on The John Cena Classic
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live, F4W’s own Lance Storm pointed out a potentially glaring issue with the new format and why it might lead to talent not wanting to put over their colleagues on TV:
“If I’m a $500,000 main roster talent and I’m in there with a $75,000 a year NXT guy, why would I use my skill and my experience to make him look good? If he wins the popularity contest and wins and gets the push to the championship, I could lose my job” Lance noted. “Because there is going top be a TKO executive saying, ‘well why are we paying this guy that lost the fan vote and is less over than this NXT guy that works for way less money?'”
One of the biggest elements to making a pro wrestling match work is the talent working together, which is something Lance points out could be thrown out the window: “If I know ahead of time, ‘Hey, you’re getting a push, we wanna protect this guy,’ I’ll make him look good. But if I don’t know who’s winning or losing the actual fan vote, it’s no longer in my interest to make the guy look good.”
Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling as Head of Media as well as working on the social channels of the company.