Jeff Jarrett has praised John Cena as a performer while raising pointed concerns about the storytelling consequences of the John Cena Classic’s fan vote format, arguing that removing wins and losses as the determining factor for a championship fundamentally undermines professional wrestling’s core appeal.
Speaking on his My World podcast, Jarrett acknowledged the business logic behind the concept before identifying what he sees as the central problem.
“I get it from a business perspective. It’s the funnel to get people engaged and there’s going to be an X poll, there’s going to be a TikTok poll, they’re going to be on every social media platform. There’s going to be all kinds of social custom content and, I don’t know if they announced the sponsor for this, but that’s probably going to be one of John’s VO accounts that he has,” Jarrett said.
He then explained why the voting element creates a fundamental storytelling issue.
“But from the storytelling component of this, you can become champion and you don’t have to win your matches. We may be all kind of overthinking this, and it is what it is, because the whole world knows we’re scripted entertainment, but we at least want to get lost in the story, someone trying to win the title. It takes that component out, the suspension of disbelief, what matters in our world, as we’re watching this two hour or three hour episode or three hour premium live event. If we don’t need to get immersed in the story, why do we care when a hip toss happens or a false finish happens or there’s a spectacular move off the top rope?” Jarrett said.
Jarrett’s concerns echo those raised by Lance Storm earlier this week, who similarly questioned the wisdom of a championship format where in-ring victory is not the determining factor. John Cena himself acknowledged at Backlash that the concept could be a complete failure, describing it as a reflection of his personal values. Dave Meltzer reported in the Wrestling Observer Daily Update that the John Cena Classic remains a work in progress with WWE not yet having decided on the format.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit My World with Jeff Jarrett with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
