WWE has big plans for the John Cena Classic, but the original idea for the tournament apparently came with a pretty serious problem — nobody would know who was actually going to win.
John Cena unveiled the John Cena Classic Championship during the November 2 episode of WWE Raw, confirming that the event will take place December 14 at Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida. He also revealed Cody Rhodes as the first participant and announced that Club WWE members would have a say through voting. What he didn’t explain was exactly how any of that voting would work. As it turns out, WWE may have had a reason for keeping those details quiet.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that WWE’s original idea was to have wrestlers compete in tournament matches, but winning inside the ring wouldn’t necessarily mean advancing. Instead, the audience would vote on which wrestler moved forward, even if that person had just lost their match.
That sounds like an interesting concept until you realize WWE would have no idea who was moving on to the next round. According to Meltzer, people started pointing out those problems, and the company had to reconsider the idea.
“Yeah, it’s probably, it’s probably a tournament. I mean, the original idea was to do a tournament and the fans would vote for who wins, not the person who necessarily wins the match. So you would, you would, you would be, you advance by fan voting during the show. That was the original idea. And then people poked many flaws in this thing and it was like, kind of like, oh, we didn’t think about this and it was going to be reconsidered, what they were going to do. And I have no idea what happened, you know, as far as what’s reconsidered and what’s changed. I thought we were going to find that out tonight. We did not. But that was the original idea, was it was going to be a tournament and the fans would vote for who advances based on, you know, who they thought was the best of the two, you know, and, you know the problem with that is, is that, you know, you can’t. You can’t play if you’re doing this in one night. You can’t plan these matches out because you don’t know who you’re. You don’t know who’s going to win because you’re not booking the winners.”
That’s a pretty big issue for a company that normally plans its matches and storylines in advance. Under the original concept, someone could win their match and still get sent home because the audience voted for their opponent. WWE would then have to figure out the next round based on results it couldn’t control.
Meltzer said the idea was supposed to be reconsidered after those concerns came up, but he doesn’t know what WWE eventually decided. He was expecting Cena to explain the format during Raw, but that never happened.
Bryan Alvarez also questioned the original concept and suggested WWE could use voting for something else, such as selecting the tournament’s MVP or giving a participant a special opportunity. However, that was just speculation during their discussion.
The timing makes things even more interesting because Cena made a point of announcing exclusive voting privileges for Club WWE members without explaining what they’re actually voting for. The announcement even drew some boos from the Brooklyn crowd.
For now, WWE has a championship, a date, a location, and Cody Rhodes as its first announced participant. What it doesn’t have publicly is a clear explanation of how the John Cena Classic will work, especially after the original idea ran into problems.
With the December 14 event getting closer, WWE will eventually have to explain the rules. Whether the company has completely scrapped the original voting concept or found another way to use it remains unclear, but Cena’s big announcement left plenty of questions unanswered.
Do you think WWE should let people vote on who advances in the John Cena Classic, or would that make the actual matches pointless? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
