WWE Rumors: Stop Panicking About John Cena, Brock Lesnar and Night of Champions

Think back to just 10 days ago. Brock Lesnar had just German suplexed John Cena into the mat 16 times and pinned him to become the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion at SummerSlam.

This came at the close of a stellar pay-per-view that featured a clean Bray Wyatt win over Chris Jericho, probably the greatest Lumberjack Match ever between Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, a new Divas Champion after Paige beat AJ Lee and a new Intercontinental Champion, the fan favorite Dolph Ziggler. We also had a great psychological match between Rusev and Jack Swagger and the return of Stephanie McMahon to the ring after more than a decade.

WWE fans lauded SummerSlam as a triumph, and Lesnar's victory was just the icing on the cake. Monday Night Raw the next night was not the best, but it got the job done and fans were still riding the high from the previous night. Fast forward one week, and the tune has completely changed.

Check out some of these comments from the r/squaredcircle page on Reddit in the aftermath of this week's episode of Raw.

"That show did a great job of killing everyone's post-SummerSlam enthusiasm."

"That Raw f*cking sucked."

"This Raw actually made my soul hurt."

"WWE writers have completely forgotten how to tell a proper face/heel story."

No, Raw was not good this week. In fact, it was pretty bad. But what confounds me is the extreme reactions and the instantaneous swing from one end of the spectrum to the other. And it seems this is a severe problem with wrestling fans. Would you quit watching a television show after one bad episode? Probably not. So why, after an admittedly poor episode of Raw, are fans stampeding for the exits?

The problem, as usual, is this guy.

The Hall of Fame Forum that kicked off Raw felt off somehow, but it got worse when Cena arrived. Normally, I'm one of Cena's most ardent supporters, as I think the hate for him from the IWC is nothing short of absurd. But his promo on Monday told us nothing we didn't already know. He got his ass kicked, but he's ready for another fight at Night of Champions.

The most confusing part of all was when Cena said, "I'm not going to Night of Champions to beat Brock Lesnar. I'm going to Night of Champions to beat Brock Lesnar's ass." Uh, what's the difference, Johnny? Are you going to focus only on his posterior? Is that the winning strategy you figured out while you were recovering from the SummerSlam beating? And the way he said it didn't help. He wasn't angry or even emotional. He just...said it.

Regardless, the fear now is that WWE will put the belt right back on Cena one month after Lesnar gave him the worst whooping we've seen him take in years. Story-wise, it would not make a whole lot of sense. There's no logical way to explain how John Cena, who just got the "Death of Superman" treatment in mid-August, could turn around in the span of one month and figure out how to take down a seemingly unstoppable monster. But it could happen.

Or, WWE could take the bold route and let Lesnar depart with the belt for months until WrestleMania season. There are rumors that Cena is dealing with problematic neck and shoulder injuries, so maybe he'll need some time off (real time off, not Cena time off) to recover and WWE won't want to put the championship back on him just yet.

Either way, I simply encourage fans to stick around while we watch it unfold.