by Erin Anderson
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

I may be wrong about this, but I believe something extraordinary took place last night on Smackdown! I saw the turning point in the career of a future star.

Sure, John Cena got a main-event spot (a title shot, no less) at Backlash, after beating both Benoit and the Undertaker to earn that slot. Last year he squeaked out a pay-per-view win over Chris Jericho, but let's face it -- at that point in time, Jericho would have jobbed for Lillian Garcia in an evening gown match. Cena's debut on WWE television was every rookie's dream come true: a near win over the man who is arguably the best in the business, Kurt Angle.

But last night was something special. Cena's already proven to be more than capable on the ring and on the mic; that wasn't new. He's proven that he can draw crowd heat well; that wasn't new, either. It wasn't the fact that the crowd responded to him…. it was the fact that the crowd responded favorably to him, despite his heel status. That makes all the difference.

Granted, the show was in Halifax. Canadian crowds are notoriously difficult when it comes to whom they are "supposed" to cheer and boo. Frankly, I think we should listen to them. If we did, Jericho would be a face, Steiner would be a heel, and all would be right with the world. Or not, since Hogan/Mr. America would still be the greatest man who ever lived. But the point is that Cena was just so damn good with his rap that the audience actually cheered for him.

What brought about this change? It all started innocently enough, and creative probably didn't realize that they were really on to something with Cena's Thuganomics incarnation. Think back to last Halloween, when we saw the first version of Cena's rapper gimmick, a (surprisingly good) impersonation of Vanilla Ice. Funny as it may have been, it was too cartoonish to have any kind of staying power. That, and the general reaction of the mainstream WWE audience was something along the lines of, "Huh?"

But it stuck. After being relegated to the obligatory lower mid-card feud with Rikishi (the standard gauntlet for the new guys in WWE), Cena started going places. His raps got better and more intense as time went on, and really took off during his "injury" at the hands of Brock Lesnar. As an example…

Sample rap from the Royal Rumble: "I'm like a swollen penis -- you'll never beat me."

Sample rap from last night: "Man, my fist'll swell your face -- you'll be the white Dizzy Gillespie."

See the improvement?

I had always thought that Cena's rapping was funny, but last night I found myself actually laughing out loud while watching by myself; he had easily topped all of his previous performances. To be sure, I checked with my mark of a brother, Bert, who also watched the show. His thoughts on Cena? "I gotta admit, that was pretty fuckin' funny."

That was all I needed to hear. This kid is over.

This is all eerily reminiscent of the Rock: a man who showed promise with his debut, went nowhere as a face, turned heel, and eventually won over the fans by excelling on the mic. It didn't matter that Rocky was a heel when he truly started getting a positive fan reaction -- the admiration came not necessarily from Rocky's material, but his delivery. The same happened with Cena last night.

It was a pretty amazing thing, really: Cena had the crowd hanging on to his every word, cheering with respect for every clever rhyme he spouted forth, and waiting to hear what he would say next. The took him seriously, and laughed with him rather than at him. The rapper gimmick was no longer a joke, but something the crowd finally acknowledged as legitimately entertaining. Every single person in that arena wanted to hear what he had to say, something that cannot be said of other veteran main-eventers.

Who else on the Smackdown! side is capable of that sort of thing? Brock Lesnar can't do it. The Undertaker? Not really. Hogan can, but he's not giving us anything that we haven't seen him do for the last 20 years, and is stuck in a feud that's going nowhere. Angle can, but he's off screen for several more weeks. Simply put, Cena is the single most entertaining thing about Smackdown! right now. I haven't seen a wrestler hold an audience spellbound with a promo like that since… well, since the Rock.

Is Cena the next Rock? Possibly. He's got all the tools necessary to make it happen, and the talent to carry himself if he ever needs to dump the white rapper gimmick. I truly believe that he could convincingly hold the WWE Championship by the end of the year. And who is the man to propel Cena to championship status?

The same man who gave him his impressive debut: Kurt Angle.

He's the perfect geeky white-boy opponent for Cena's streetwise character; a promo between those two could easily rival the back-and-forth exchanges between the Rock and Hurricane earlier in the year, and make for the funniest WWE moments of the year.

Angle's role in Cena's first televised WWE performance also makes him an easy target for a feud. A simple backstage spat or interruption of one of the Olympic Hero's promos could start it, and Cena's reasoning for doing so could be simple: yeah, he got beat the first time around, but he's hanging with the big boys now, and wants another shot at it.

Plus, everyone knows about Kurt's ability to make his opponent look like a million bucks; Cena will be no different. He made him look great in his first match, and he can do it again in a pay-per-view main event. Cena doesn't need to win the match, either -- remember what losing to Kurt at a pay-per-view did for Edge?

E-MAIL ERIN
BROWSE THE BROAD'S ARCHIVES

Erin Anderson is an Atlanta native and a student at Georgia State University. Since writing about wrestling didn't go over too well with her English professors, she vents here at Online Onslaught.

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