Views From The Turnbuckle: WWE's WrestleMania Crisis And What Can Be Done

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of WrestlingInc or its staff.

Before the announcement of John Cena's injury late Wednesday night, WWE was already facing an uphill battle for WrestleMania. Injuries to top stars Seth Rollins and Randy Orton already hurt their roster, plus the uncertainty surrounding Daniel Bryan, WWE was out three out of their four biggest full-time stars. On the bright side they still had John Cena, by far their biggest star, and even better Cena was coming off a break where he didn't wrestle for several months, ensuring he would be recharged and rested for WrestleMania season. Unfortunately, Cena was barely back on the main roster before suffering a torn rotator cuff injury that would require surgery.

A torn rotator cuff is an extremely significant injury that takes even the best professional athletes 6-12 months to come back from following surgery. Even if Cena made another miraculous, HGH-inspired recovery and was back as soon as possible, that would probably still put him outside of the window for WrestleMania, and certainly wouldn't allow him to participate physically in any storyline leading up to WrestleMania. In addition, WWE obviously wouldn't want Cena to rush back and cause further damage to his shoulder. It looks like WWE will have to bite the bullet on this one.

As soon as WWE announced that WrestleMania 32 would take place at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, they put themselves in the hole to break the indoor attendance record. The attendance record for the stadium is 108,713, which was set during the 2010 NBA All-Star game. Since WrestleMania 31 only had an attendance of about 55,000 (announced at 77,000) they would want to double last year's attendance. This wasn't going to be the average run-of-the-mill WrestleMania, this had to be the biggest event in wrestling history. The fact that WWE would put this pressure on themselves during a time period where attendance, TV ratings and their overall popularity is way down from their height during the Attitude Era, deserves at least some ridicule. Of course, WWE could always just lie about the attendance figure like the do every year anyways. The "magic number" of 93,000 that WWE supposedly set during WrestleMania III is a complete fabrication anyway, so WWE shouldn't feel any extra pressure to fill the stadium. As long as it looks like a ton of people are there, which it will, they can claim a ridiculous number and most fans wouldn't be any the wiser.

The real focus of concern should be on the overall quality and marketability of WrestleMania 32 now that it is without Cena. WWE still has some star power as they will have The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar and Triple H. The Rock also announced that he will be at the event, although it is unlikely he is going to wrestle due to commitments he has made to Hollywood.

Notice something about all of those guys? They are part-time stars that are there to collect the big paychecks for WrestleMania, but are absent for large portions of WWE's day-to-day product. I have been saying for years that WWE is too reliant on part-time wrestlers, putting them in positions that would have otherwise gone to less-established talent, giving them an opportunity to become big enough stars that they can carry the product without needing the boost from part time wrestlers. The same can be said for opponents of John Cena. Cena has feuded with many different wrestlers that had the potential to become full-time, main event stars, yet only a couple of them (Edge, CM Punk who are retired and Daniel Bryan who is injured) managed to become ones. The complete lack of star-building meant that once WWE got dealt a couple of injuries, they were suddenly crippled. Out of the remaining roster, only Reigns can really be considered a true main event talent, as much as WWE wants to convince themselves that Sheamus, Big Show, and Alberto Del Rio are all top stars, the fact is that Reigns is the only one on the roster who would even sniff the main event for a major show if it was not for the injures.

Injuries suck; and most of the time they are nobody's fault. However, the problem of WWE having such little roster depth was entirely preventable. A perfect example of how things could have been conducted better is with Kevin Owens. When Owens first debuted on the main roster, he was immediately over with the audience and got an unbelieve debut, defeating John Cena clean and in the middle of the ring. After that, Owens lost cleanly to Cena and then to make sure that fans knew that Owens was not an equal to Cena, they had him lose again to Cena, this time submitting to Cena. Instead of having a giant heel that could be seen by the fans as a top bad guy and really a great foil for Reigns, WWE ensured that Owens would be kicked back down the ladder and is now a mid-card heel. Now that WWE is so desperate for a top heel to work with Reigns they dusted off the evil Vince McMahon character. If they had just booked Owens strong during his initial feud against Cena, they wouldn't have this problem, but now WWE is paying the price for their own obliviousness towards the necessity of having a roster that has a star-power greater than one.

So what can WWE do to salvage WrestleMania? I think it is pretty clear that somebody on the main roster is going to have to make a leap forward. Dean Ambrose seems like a logical choice considering he has been playing the role of Randy Savage to Roman Reign's Hulk Hogan during the last couple months, although Ambrose hasn't shown really any great leap in popularity despite the extra television time in recent months. Owens should be expected to make a leap forward if WWE allows him to do such a thing, but again he remains relegated in the mid-card despite the fact that WWE has no legit top heels. The members of the League of Nations are not over, but WWE seems to have a lot of faith in most of them, so they will probably see a prominent spot at WrestleMania, even though they have proven to not really be up to the task and Sheamus was made out to look like a complete loser on Monday's RAW when he couldn't be Roman Reigns when Vince McMahon was the freakin' guest referee. Flying under the radar is Chris Jericho, who although has been more of a mid-card wrestler over the last several years, still has the charisma and the reputation to take apart in a top match at WrestleMania.

Another possibility could be AJ Styles, who recently left NJPW with all signs pointing that he is going to WWE. Styles could very well make his debut at the Royal Rumble (in Orlando where he will most likely be recognized by a majority of the fans) and if WWE sells him as a big enough deal, I think he can easily get over on the main event level fairly quickly. Styles NOT being a part of WWE will help him in this instance, because if he had been with WWE for a couple years he most likely would have been booked to a degree that fans don't take him that seriously as a legit top star, like so many of the wrestlers WWE has brought to the main roster in recent years. Fans haven't been conditioned to feel any particular way about Styles, giving him a blank slate to work with, so if WWE books him like a big deal, and AJ does some impressive stuff in the ring (which we all know is possible) then he can get over pretty easily. The same method can be used to bring up NXT stars like Finn Balor, who will come in not necessarily with a blank slate, but with a resume that shows relevance.

Injuries have hurt WWE, there is no doubt about that, but perhaps more damaging then any muscle tears was the poor planning in advance for these injuries. WWE kept their options so limited with their main roster that they had no real plan to deal with an unfortunate rash of injuries. Compare this with NJPW, which is dealing with their own talent issue with Styles, Karl Anderson, DOC Gallows and Shinsuke Nakamura departing for WWE. NJPW has way more options, with guys like Hirooki Goto, Kenny Omega, Tetsuya Naito, Katsuyori Shibata and Tomohiro Ishii that can all step forward. They won't be as successful right away as the previous stars, but the important thing is that NJPW has kept them all relevant enough over the last several years that fans can take them seriously coming in and accepting bigger roles within the company. The same cannot be said for a majority of WWE's roster, which is why they are in such a dire predicament heading into their biggest event of the year.