Jim Cornette: How I Would Have Booked John Cena’s Final Year

With John Cena's final year in WWE coming to an end, Jim Cornette is looking back at what WWE did right and wrong. On the latest episode of Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru, the veteran booker sums up what he would've done if he had the opportunity to book Cena's last run.

Cena's farewell tour began with a loss to Jey Uso in the Royal Rumble match, followed by a shocking heel turn at Elimination Chamber. The heel turn fizzled fairly quickly despite Cena's 17th title win at Wrestlemania, but WWE managed to turn it around as Cena turned babyface and dropped the title to Cody Rhodes.

They say all's well that end's well, so perhaps Cena's last year will be remembered fondly, but Cornette still wishes the run had been booked differently.

The Heel Turn Was a Mistake

"I wouldn't have turned him heel obviously, and you can't just have a greatest hits tour where he comes, you know, 35 times or whatever the number of dates were and beats 35 different people," Cornette says. "The thing they have done right is that they spread out his appearances between various television shows and different types of live events."

Cena's Last Run as a Babyface

"I would have, at the start of the year, had him [against] three or four main opponents sketched out for the year that he wanted to work with and maybe wanted to work with a couple of times, and then I would have had some other guys that would have been a great money match or whatever the case for a lesser event."

"Then just ran that plan and had him make the TVs, not only to sell the tickets in all these major markets, but to do shit to build the matches... had a plan at the start when he'd have the four main opponents and they'd all be heels, and then maybe he can have a babyface match on one of the secondary programs -- him and AJ Styles or whatever the case."

Make Cena's Losses Mean Something

"I would have tried to figure out two heels that it would advance their cause in life if they were to beat him. Let him do, over the course of a year, two jobs, because people weren't wanting to see him lose and especially didn't want to see him get the teetotal shit beat out of him by Brock Lesnar unless he's coming back to get even, which looks more and more unlikely.

"I know they wanted to do things with Brock in the future and he's in the Wrestlemania commercial... great. I think he's got enough standing in the community, Brock Lesnar, and enough cashé in the industry, he didn't have to just demolish John Cena and just bum the fucking people who paid all that money out."

"I might even have said, 'What about Cena loses one to this guy and then gets a rematch and wins, but the other one, he beats the guy at first but he gets the rematch and he loses, so that heel gets the last word?" Would it have done good for Bron Breakker? Maybe it's still a little too soon, but might he have slipped up and been one of the guys there to actually beat John Cena? Just have that in his resume?"

Making the Fans Happy

"But for the most part, it [would be] a 'See John Cena one last time in this market tour' and I would have made the people happy with major promo segments, angles when necessary and matches where he was competitive and it was main-event opponents, but he won by the skin of his teeth in most, but not all, and the losses would come later on in the year."