and this is another big reason why hes pushed as the face of the company. He's also real good at going public apperances on Jimmy Kimmel and such

Unless his divorce casts him in a Tiger Woods light.

Although bringing back Mickie, Victoria, Torrie Wilson or whoever he's supposedly been linked to in the Lita roll would be freaking funny.

With both my sons having recieved Wishes from them, all I can say is love him or hate John Cena, what he does is fantastic for each of those families and it does make a difference in their lives.

And also a tip of the hat for the WWE to rearrange his schedule to allow him to have a wish granted.

What you may not also realize it that a lot of the kids that get the headbands or Rey masks as they enter the ring are also special wish kids, so the WWE does a lot that is not publicized for them.

I think we've hit the nail on the head here and we'll never see a full Cena heel turn (at least not for years and years and if he ever does turn it'd be hogan nwo massive and would need a suitably massive storyline/antagonist to do justice to - I can't think of anyone on the roster at this point it'd be worth turning him to face off with).

What I would like to see is more nuanced Cena storytelling making him human. They've tilted at this a couple of times and then bottled it (Cena's role as corporate stooge champion vs Punk, the kiss with eve). He doesn't have to turn - you could have a good long storyline where his motivation is questioned in some way (I'm thinking of things like the dibiase buying luger angle or the Kurt-HHH-Stephanie angle) but he turns out to be in the right and still face. That type of thing would refresh the character in much the same way as a heel turn.

Saw Cena's smiling face on the front page of Yahoo with this story, then saw it here.

Yeah - no way going face with that stuff. And good PR play for WWE re: getting in news cycle for very positive stuff. Hat tip to their PR department.

I also want to point out where it says that it's so important that they re-arranged his schedule in order for him to accommodate the charity. That would explain his absence on RAW a few weeks ago.

At this point, what can they even do to turn him monster heel? Short of going all ego-driven, coming out and serially destroying beloved legends like Piper, Foley, HBK, JR, etc for whatever reason I just can't really see how they can fully turn him into something so completely hateful that it makes the kids in the arena (and at home) break down and cry.

I don't see why Cena should turn heel at this point. I don't know if anyone noticed, but pretty much between the night after the Lesnar match all the way up to Sunday, he's been getting pretty solid cheers. Hell, the only reason he got booed Monday was because the audience had a small "smarky" section that quickly got drowned out the second Cena and Johnny got paired up. Granted, WWE had Big Johnny to rely on as a figure that was just completely uncheerable and having him associated with Big Show didn't hurt that program, so maybe it goes back to 50/50 reactions whenever they pair him up with the next guy? Or they can just have John associated with every guy Cena faces for the rest of his career.

That is the reality of it. From a PR perspective the WWE would be fools to turn Cena heel, and that doesn't even address Cena's personal feelings for and obvious love of participating in the charity. As the article states it's hard to tell a sick kid that Pro-wrestling isn't a sport. I would imagine it would be that much harder to explain to them the nuances of playing a character and how he still cares for the kids even if he's an on-screen bad guy. That being said, I've seen many of WWE's on publicity pics of heels like Miz, Ziggler, and Eve interacting with children who still seem to like them. I just don't think it would be the same. I'm sure WWE will think long and hard before they ever pull the heel trigger with Cena, although as a wrestling fan it was long overdue five years ago. There would have to be a new super-face before they could even consider it...maybe after he grants those thousand wishes.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/john-cena-make-a-wish-300-requests-pro-wrestling-wwe.html



There are always plenty of candidates for top sports celebrity bad guy: LeBron, Tiger, T.O., Roger Clemens, and on and on.

But what about top sports good guy? Those names don't come to mind quite as easily. Even beloved athletes such as Tim Tebow and Derek Jeter have detractors.

But by one important measure, there is a runaway favorite.

John Cena.

Pro wrestler John Cena granted his 300th Make-A-Wish request to a 7-year-old boy.The pro wrestling superstar granted his 300th Make-A-Wish request to a 7-year-old Pennsylvania boy named Jonny Littman earlier this week. That's far and away tops among sports celebrities.

(Pause here for those who don't think pro wrestling is a sport. It's not. But tell that to a sick child. And, by the way, throwing a 250-pound man across a ring 300 nights a year constitutes athleticism of some sort.)

Only a few other sports stars have granted more than 200 wishes, including Hulk Hogan, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Michael Jordan is in the 200 neighborhood and Kobe Bryant has granted more than 100. (More than 50 wishes will be granted at the London Olympics.) Cena raced past 300 and he fully intends on getting to 1,000.

How popular is Cena with Make-A-Wish? There's a conference room dedicated to him at the company headquarters in Arizona.

"Overall, I get 100-140 WWE wish requests a year," said Shaina Reeser, sports program manager at Make-A-Wish, "and the majority is for John Cena. He probably does two or three kids every week. It's crazy."


Cena never says no. Even though his schedule is tougher than most stars � there are no home games and there's no off-season � he unfailingly builds in time for Wish kids. WWE rep Kevin Hennessey even says Cena's 300th wish was so important that his bosses rearranged his entire schedule for it.

It's not that other athletes are cold-hearted. Pretty much everyone says yes to Make-A-Wish every time. (In fact, LeBron, Tiger, T.O. and Clemens have all done over-the-top wishes for kids across the country.) But sometimes schedules conflict or an athlete can't be in the area where his wish kid lives. And, sadly, because of illness and the course of treatment, wish kids don't always have a lot of time to wait for their favorite athletes to become free. One of the big myths about Make-A-Wish is that children pass away from their illnesses; many make a full recovery. The only requirement for a wish kid is a life-threatening condition. But that usually entails severe hardship not only physically but financially. Families spend so much on care and medical bills that they can't afford over-the-top presents. That's where Make-A-Wish comes in. And that's where celebs like John Cena come through.

"He has been a big supporter of us forever," said Make-A-Wish national communications manager Mark Hiegel. "By this time next year, he'll have 400."

And while some heroes do a simple meet-and-greet, Cena turns the Wish into an experience. He usually invites the child to Monday Night Raw, where he takes the entire family backstage, gives them all signed memorabilia and introduces them to other WWE stars. That's what he did for Jonny Littman on Monday in New York. But then Cena followed up with a surprise visit the next day on Good Morning America.

That's by far the best part of the Make-A-Wish day � the surprise. Kids sometimes get shy and sometimes beam for hours, but they all forget for a while about the next hospital visit or the next round of chemo.

"He gets the kids out of their shells," Reeser said of Cena. "He's every good at asking questions, pulling information out of them. There's always a huge smile and their eyes light up. The more outgoing kids will say Cena's phrase, which is 'You can't see me.' "

But that's just it. A sick kid can see Cena. He makes sure of it.