A lot of people bring up all the things the face has to do. They have to appear on talk shows, do charity work, appear on cereal boxes, and do a lot of work to promote the company. I sometimes see people bring up that maybe no one else wants to be John Cena, because of the hectic schedule. A person that is going to do all this has to be very loyal, have a certain amount charisma and charm, and has to be very busy.
What does this type of person not have to be? How about a great wrestler? How about loved by the actual fans and viewers of the product? In return for so much loyalty and hard work, the person should definitely be pushed well. However, if they cannot connect properly with a good enough amount of the audience, they should not be pushed too hard. Everyone is going to have some amount of haters, but when the face of the company has a lot of them, and sometimes for a good reason, maybe he shouldn't be pushed as the centerpiece.
What kind of worker should be pushed as the centerpiece? It should be someone the fans actually are reacting well to and is good in the ring. True wrestling fans do not make up the WWE's entire audience, but they still count. This is a wrestling promotion. Daniel Bryan should be the current centerpiece. This guy is connecting with fans better than John Cena, Randy Orton, Batista, and a lot of other guys. Reward that with a better push. Promote him better. Try to make some money off him. He has earned it.
Should Daniel Bryan be the face of the company? I am not talking about some kayfabe face. Randy Orton currently has that spot. I have not heard of him doing as much as John Cena has done for the company, so I do not consider him the true face. I don't even consider him the centerpiece. Back to Daniel Bryan, being so over and being the centerpiece should definitely get you some extracurricular activities. That does not mean Daniel Bryan should necessarily get the level of extracurricular activities that Cena gets. Is Bryan willing to do it? Can he connect well on those talk shows? Does he have the look and charm of Cena? I don't know how Daniel Bryan would work out as the face of the company. Based on his overness and wrestling ability, however, I believe he deserves to be pushed as the centerpiece more than Cena.
Let me talk about Miz. He is frequently doing movies, award shows, and other things like that. In terms of doing things you would expect of the face, he is somewhat like Cena. In terms of how he is being pushed, however, he is being pushed nothing like John Cena. He is not even pushed as well as Daniel Bryan. Even during his run with the WWE title, people like to bring up that he was buried under The Rock and Cena. Loyalty to the company has not paid off huge for him, in terms of pushes. If you were to separate the face from the centerpiece, Miz is a guy you might argue should be the face, especially should something happen to Cena now. Because of his lack of overness and wrestling ability that still gets criticized by some, you wouldn't push him as the centerpiece.
Hard work and loyalty should not automatically get you the best treatment. Let me give a personal example. The lowest grade I have ever gotten for a class was a D in Calculus II. I should have gotten an F. I failed every single test. The material was hard and I don't think the professor was very good. The only reason I still passed was because I showed effort and tried. How would it look if I got an A in that class simply for doing everything right, except actually understanding the subject and passing any of the tests? It wouldn't be right. No one is questioning Cena's loyalty and hard work for the sake of the WWE. His wrestling ability? Yeah, people do challenge that. His overness? Yes, that is also an issue. He is not getting the job done well enough right now to deserve to be the centerpiece. Want to blame how the WWE is pushing him? Okay, but while you try to figure out how to make him work right, other guys may not get that better push. Cena should still get pushed well, but a depush wouldn't hurt. Let this current decline in focus around him last a while.
How does this translate to the diva division? I think separating the face from the centerpiece might even work out better there. That diva division fell apart due to the inability of the eye-candy divas pushed to be the centerpiece to work out. These women have the look that you might associate with glamorous celebrities in Hollywood. In the last few years, these women have also tended to fail to get over, have their wrestling ability deteriorate, left the company before they can really do anything great with them, and so on. And that has led to the WWE just losing interest and letting things fall. Some of these women definitely have the look and the personality to make them obvious choices for extracurricular activities. Problem is, when their inability to get it done in the actual diva division leads to this collapse, you have to do something else. Separate things better. Let women with solid wrestling ability and connecting well with the fans get the good pushes in the division. An eye-candy diva that has the look and charisma, but not the wrestling ability and overness, can be a good option to be pushed as face of the division.
Where did Mickie James fit in all this? Obviously, she was not the centerpiece. She was the woman they pushed to put over the centerpiece and used as interim centerpiece when the woman they would rather be pushing was not there. She did, however, do a lot of extracurricular activities for the WWE. Did that really make her the face? Or his her story similar to Miz's story? What would it mean for John Cena to do all he does for the WWE and be pushed like Miz has been? Even better, what would it mean for Cena to do all he does for them and the WWE to treat him like they do Zack Ryder? This guy is doing so much to promote you and is so loyal, but you push him that badly? Mickie James gave the WWE multiple reasons why she should have been the face, but I think most of that was her trying to prove her loyalty to them, not them developing her as they would Cena. As far as centerpiece of the diva division goes, her overness speaks for itself. And she had the wrestling ability to also deserve the position.
Occasionally, the stars might align. That person you want to push as the face of the company also happens to have what it takes to be the centerpiece. I do not believe that is the story with John Cena right now. Daniel Bryan? I am not sure how he would work as the poster boy of the company. If that diva division was run with a fairer agenda, Mickie James would have been pushed as the centerpiece and gotten the type of extracurricular promotion that the face would get. When the stars do not align, however, there is nothing wrong if you have two separate individuals representing your company. One is the person the fans really want to see, while the other is your top representative when it comes to promoting the company. If you separated things, you might not have a lot of the problems you have today.
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