Let’s talk about the John Cena Classic: This concept has some positives as well as some negatives

So we finally got a better understanding of what the John Cena Classic will be a week after John Cena made the announcement on RAW last week. Basically, it’s a show that’s going to look very similar to what they did last year with Cena’s retirement show, which featured NXT wrestlers facing main roster talent throughout the entire event. The difference this time is that fans will be able to vote for their favorites through Club WWE, and the winner of the fan vote will receive the meaningless John Cena Championship.

This concept has some positives as well as some negatives.

On the positive side, it gives some NXT wrestlers a chance to get more exposure and get the rub from main roster talent, which is always a positive thing.

As an example, just look at how great the exposure was for last year’s group of NXT wrestlers who were featured on the Cena retirement show. Oba Femi is a top-level guy, Sol Ruca has already won the Women’s Intercontinental Championship and is being positioned as an upper-tier wrestler in the women’s division. Je’Von Evans just won the tag team titles and continues to get pushed in the midcard, while Leon Slater is the TNA Champion and will probably make the jump to WWE once his contract with TNA is up. Everybody involved in the Cena retirement show is thriving right now, and I think the Cena Classic could do the same thing for most of this year’s participants.

I’m intrigued to see who the remaining invitees from both sides will be and what the matches will look like because, from a wrestling standpoint, it’s probably going to be a strong show.

The negative comes with the voting for this event. I understand that this event was mostly created to sell more subscriptions to Club WWE, but that comes with a few drawbacks.

First, you might alienate international fans since Club WWE is only available in the United States. This means that fans outside the country won’t be able to vote for who they think should win the title. Because of that, they might not be as invested in the show. For those fans, it’s just a meaningless wrestling show with meaningless matches.

Second, there’s the risk of vote tampering. Yes, this could happen, as I could see some fans or even non-fans subscribing to Club WWE just so they can troll WWE and make sure the worst guy or girl wins the title. It’s easy enough to create multiple accounts and vote for whoever you want, so the possibility of someone like Noam Dar winning the title because of vote tampering is very real.

In the end, I understand what Cena is trying to accomplish with this concept, and I’m curious to see what the end result will be. I’ll try to catch the show on December 14. However, this could go either way in terms of whether it will be a success or a total disaster.

While I like the build-up so far, this could easily come crashing down on December 14 if WWE doesn’t find a way to make the voting process legitimate. That’s going to be the biggest test for this event.