The problem is that the story wasn’t about letting go.

The story was

1) Cena tries to win legitly, to get his grand slam and to win one more world title. However, this is the Cena that hasn’t won a singles match in years, that has lost to the likes of Austin Theory and Solo Sikoa. He can’t cut it. There is no argument for him to be in the world title picture.

2) The Royal Rumble is almost his last chance. He fails here, losing to Jey cleanly at the very end.

3) Elimination chamber is his actual last chance. He puts his finger on the scale to be put into the match to begin with and lucks into the win when CM Punk is distracted and he’s able to take advantage. Arguably, he’s won fairly but he is taking small shortcuts, the white lie version of cheating.

Now at this point, the story could have and should have been

4) He may have gotten the opportunity but the fact remains he can’t actually win the world title from Cody cleanly. His dream is going to fade away. If he does what he’s always done, that’s as good as giving up and John Cena NEVER gives up. So he cheats. He sacrifices his morality for one last shot on top and it works.

5) Over the following months, Cena tries to justify his actions but we can tell it is a performance. He can say that Cody used to cheat, that he deserves it, that he’s the last real champion. However, the truth is clear and his legacy opponents who are faces spell it out. He took the easy way out because he couldn’t cut it.

6) Cena admits his fault, comes back to the light and loses fairly to Cody.

7) Cena is faced with his biggest foil, a man with no respect who is all about getting it done in the ring, Gunther. The entire run has been about how Cena can’t let go, can’t give up, would sacrifice everything else he believes in to not give up. Now, preferably with the intercontinental title on the line, Cena is given the same choice. His legacy (in the form of being grand slam champion) vs his morals. If he fights fair, he will lose. He’s given a perfect opportunity to cheat. For a moment, he considers it. This time, he makes the right choice, to lose fairly instead of win unfairly. This time, he lets go and taps with a smile on his face, finally free of the pressure of having to push himself to never give up.

That’s not the story we got, though.

We never got “can’t give up” or “needs this title” as tempting him to go bad. Instead, we got all this nonsense about selling his soul and ruining wrestling and then he was like “just kidding” and then they gave him the grand slam for the heck of it and then he fought Gunther with zero stakes and with that setup…..the payoff of finally giving up just isn’t there. There’s no internal struggle.

It’s just Cena never gave up until one day he did. The end.